Grey
by silencer42
Summary: I am a killer. My preferred instrument is the rifle, and my weapon is my mind. I am a woman who loves and hates only if and when it facilitates my objective to kill. To kill I have to survive. Survive and kill, this was my purpose. shiznat
1. Chapter 1

Hello there fellow shiznat fans,

I've been posting this fic on my lj and so far the reviews have been great but i just wanted to have a bit more feedback so i am posting it here also. In my lj i have posted all the way to chapter 4 so i'm posting the first chapter here and then the rest on monday cuz i don't get internet on saturday or sunday.

anyways please read review, enjoy and prepare to be confused.

Disclaimer: I own nothing...seriously

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They both walked past two gray doors, one on each side. The one on the left led to a training room, a large sensory-deprivation tank that they had used many times in her early training. She floated without any perception, left only to the dark spaces of her mind. Terrible, beautiful, comforting lost. But she always managed to find herself.

The other room had a small kitchen, a refrigerator, a shower, and a hard bunk without a mattress. When she wasn't training she slept and ate there.

The hall took a sharp turn then went down another flight of stairs into the pit. They called it the pit but it was really a small square concrete room with black walls. A single metal chair was bolted to the floor in the center of the room. There was a small metal door to an access tunnel at the back of the room, but it was always locked. There were no other features.

No lights.

She paused at the open door, then stepped in, walked to the chair then turned around.

Shizuru stood at the door staring at her. If she wasn't mistaken she looked sad. Shizuru didn't like her being here. Why not? It was what she needed to succeed. And it wasn't nearly as bad as the hospital bed or the electricity.

They controlled the temperature of the room by heating or cooling the floor. The only way to survive the extended periods of time in the extreme temperature was to sleep sitting, something she could do only with considerable focus.

They monitored her vital signs with remote sensors.

"How long will I be here?"

"Two days."

She slipped off her shoes and tossed them to the floor by Shizuru's feet. Shizuru picked them up and tossed them onto the steps behind her.

"And then more training?" Natsuki asked.

"Yes. I want you to forget everything that happened at the W."

Natsuki nodded. They stared at each other for a few seconds.

"Be strong, Natsuki. You have to make it...we're almost done. I'm really proud of you...you know that don't you?"

"Yes"

"They will try to break you this last month...promise me you won't break."

"I won't break."

"I think that you'll change the world, they have something special in mind for you...all of this will soon make sense."

"It already does," Natsuki said "Why are you helping me?"

Shizuru walked into the room, placed her right hand on her chest and kissed her gently on the lips. "Maybe this will help you remember," she said.

Then she walked out and shut the door behind her. A bolt slammed into place as soon as the door was shut. Familiar silence settled. She couldn't hear her go up the stairs.

Natsuki stood with one hand on the chair staring at the blackness. It made no difference if she had her eyes closed or open.

She stood without moving for a long time, at least an hour. The question that had bothered her up in the light no longer mattered. She had spent many hours asking those same questions and never getting any answers only false emotions which she could not afford. The only way to be able to survive for Shizuru was to shut herself down.

The floor begin to cool and she knew that it would soon be covered in ice. She climbed on the chair and sat cross-legged.

It was time to enter the safe tunnel in her mind.

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review!!! 


	2. Chapter 2

Mwuahahaha they love it!...clears throat

I'm glad everyone who read it thinks its great, the feedback i'm getting is great...so far. anyways please continue reading i'll be posting the rest of the chapters throughout this whole week (except on saturdays and sundays) so on with the story and be expecting chapter 3 tomorow- O.o did i spell that right?

Disclaimer: As always, i own nothing...

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Two days or maybe ten days ago-she'd lost her sense of time completely-that light had been the murder of two people in the W hotel. But she'd extinguished that light, as Shizuru had asked her to. She had learned long ago that if she didn't erase certain memories than, Youko would, and she didn't favor her methods.

Now the light at the end of her tunnel was survival.

She sat cross-legged on the metal chair, making her flesh that was in contact with the chair to stay cool, sitting perfectly still so that the rest of her skin would not be scalded.

She had slowed her heart rate to fifty beats per minute to compensate for the heat in the same way that she increased her heart rate to compensate for extreme cold. She did not drink or pass any waste. These were the easiest functions to control. More difficult were her emotions, that seemed to rise in offense at such treatment. In the worst conditions, she resorted to turning her emotions to Shizuru. To her Crimson eyes, which were pools of kindness and love. The only such pools she knew.

Natsuki was so used to the torturous conditions of her pit that she no longer thought of them as torment. They were simply the path to the light.

Youko had asked her recently whether she thought she could ever step outside the mental tunnel.

"_If your tunnel protects you from threats, could you not deal with those threats offensively rather than just defensively?" She had asked._

_"I _am_ offensive," Natsuki replied. "My aim is to survive."_

_"Yes, and you achieve that aim very well. But have you ever tried to deal with the threats more...directly?"_

_"I'm not sure what you mean."_

_"You ward off the heat by controlling your mind and changing the way your body reacts to it...Have you ever tried to change the heat itself?"_

_Was she suggesting her to try to lower the room's temperature? It was stupid and she politely told her as much._

_"Is it? What if I were to tell you that it has been done?"_

_"How? When?"_

_"In many documented cases studied by science. The pH balance of water, for example, can be significantly raised or lowered strictly through focused thought. Waves of energy, not particles, form the foundation of the world we know. It is possible, Natsuki, to effect these waves. They are connected to your mind."_

_"I can push an object with my hand and make it move," She said._

_"I can't do that with a wave from my mind."_

_"Because you don't think of the wave as an object." Youko retorted._

_"If you were to stand on your island-your mind-and send out a large wave toward another distant mountain in the sea, could you destroy that mountain? Or at least move it?"_

_"I suppose you could."_

_"With an idea the size of a mustard seed, you could move a mountain," she said. "It's all a matter of prospective. When you first tried to see the light at the end of your tunnel, what did you see?"_

_"I closed my eyes and saw nothing but blackness."_

_"And what did you feel?"_

_She hesitated. For some reason the memory of failure had never gone away. The first time they had inserted a needle through her shoulder, she screamed until she passed out._

_"Pain," She said._

_"But you found a way to construct the tunnel by pushing through the blackness of the light."_

_"Yes"_

_"Maybe you should try to punch a hole in the side of the tunnel and push back the sea of heat. Change the heat instead of just protecting yourself from it...it's theoretically possible."_

It wasn't easy to take even a fraction of her focus off the light. The light was her survival, her comfort, her life. She had become very good at giving it her complete attention.

What if she could form a second tunnel to punch through the first one?

The thought took her by surprise. The light faded, and for a moment she thought the tunnel had collapsed. But it remained straight and true, and the distant pinpoint of light came back into sharp focus.

She considered this new thought. Maybe a _second_ tunnel of focus could break through the walls she'd made.

Shizuru Fujino sat at a round metal table in the main laboratory watching the monitor as the lines of numbers ran by. Natsuki's vitals had held rock steady since she'd gone deep nearly three days ago now. In terms of controlling her emotions, she was better than Reito, who, although the more accomplished killer, seemed to have less control over his mind, which could in time make him the lesser of the two. Then again, Reito had appeared on the scene a full month after Natsuki and was already well ahead of her.

On occasion she couldn't escape the vague notion that he was far more than who he said he was. More than even Ishigami or Youko sensei knew. A puppet master who was only playing games here while he waited for his true purpose to reveal itself.

'_Ishigami fears the man,' _she thought.

All three had full control of their vitals and had developed nearly inhuman Thresholds for pain, although how Reito and Ishigami managed so well without mastery over emotion was still a bit of a mystery to Shizuru.

On the other hand, maybe there achievements weren't really that much of a mystery. Training methods perfected by Youko sensei were all founded on the guiding principle that had yet to fail: the appropriation of identity. The assassins thought they were surrendering their memories, but Youko sensei wasn't concerned with erasing memory as much as erasing identity.

Identity was the key.

Altering a person's identity allowed Youko sensei to manipulate the memories associated with who a person was and what he had done without altering his knowledge of how things worked.

"No change?" Youko sensei asked.

It was a rhetorical question, to add some noise to the room. "None," Shizuru had said. They returned to the silence.

"What is this?"

Shizuru looked at Youko sensei, who was staring at the monitor. She glanced back at Natsuki's vitals.

"What's what?"

"Her heart rate," Youko sensei said.

Shizuru saw the numbers blinking on the screen. Natsuki's heart rate had risen from about fifty beats per minute to ninety. They stared, caught off guard by the sudden change.

"How long?" Youko sensei asked. "Where you watching?"

"It was fifty less than five minutes ago. It's been fifty since I came in half an hour ago. Did you check the logs from the last twenty-four hours?"

"Yes. She's been static for more than forty-eight hours. Something's happened." Youko sensei hurried over to the computer and punched up her record. "Less than a minute ago. The rest of the indicators are steady."

Natsuki's pulse steadied at ninety-one beats per minute. Shizuru watched for thirty seconds. The rate changed again.

"It's dropping."

"So it is."

"What do you think caused that?" Shizuru asked.

Youko sensei watched as Natsuki's heart rate fell to sixty, then held steady.

"We're not dealing with the known here," Youko sensei said. "It's amazing enough that Natsuki can alter her vitals as easily as she does."

"A simple break in concentration could be enough to cause this."

"True, but she's not given to simple breaks. I would guess that it was emotionally induced. Natsuki is the first candidate we had that has the ability to control her receptor cells"

The chemical reactions of emotions were one of Youko sensei's primary areas of research. Because emotions were in essence chemical reactions in the brain, science had long accepted the fact that it was possible to manipulate the chemicals and therefore the emotions. A number of drugs on the market did this. But for a person to exercise control over his brain's chemicals was a different matter.

"You know she's progressed in other areas," Youko sensei said.

"Such as?"

"Her marksmanship."

Shizuru knew of her latest scores-she'd overseen the testing herself.

Her involvement with her was primarily to manipulate, and she was playing her role well, building her trust, earning her love so that her power over her would be unchallenged. Her only weakness was her and it was a weakness by design.

But lying awake late at night, she wasn't sure that all of her emotions were as calculated as they had once been. She couldn't tell Youko sensei, of course, but what if Natsuki was now becoming her greatest weakness?

Impossible. But if it became true, Ishigami would eliminate her.

"Why doesn't Ishigami trust Natsuki?" Shizuru asked.

"Who said any such thing?"

"No one. I see it in his eyes. And he's called up another ten recruits."

Youko sensei nodded absently. "A woman like Natsuki presents certain risks. Frankly, her relationship with you could become a concern. Has she asked about her mother since the last treatment?"

Shizuru blinked. "It was your plan that we bond. And yes, she has said she couldn't remember who her mother was."

"Yes, my plan, but I'm not sure the bond is strong enough. If her bond with you is ever compromised, she may become obsessive about knowing her origin, this mother figure of her."

"You want me to strengthen her bond with me?"

"I didn't say that. If the bond is too strong and something happens to you, we may lose her. It's a tenuous balance."

"With Natsuki as my guardian, it's unlikely anything will happen to me. Right?"

"Regardless. With Natsuki going on her first mission in two weeks, we need a new recruit."

"Two weeks? So soon? You have the mission?"

Youko sensei turned back to the monitor. "We've had it for a long-"

She froze, eyes on the monitor.

Shizuru scanned the stats. "What?" For the second time in ten minutes, something about Natsuki's situation had changed. This time it had nothing to do with her vitals.

"Did you change the room temperature?" Shizuru asked.

"No. It should read 150. You did nothing?"

"Nothing."

The temperature was now 140.

"It must be malfunction," Shizuru said. "It's happened-"

"The control hasn't moved. How could it be a malfunction?"

The same system that regulated the temperature in Natsuki's pit fed a small closet that was measured by separate sensors. In this control, the temperature was still 150 degrees.

"Then the thermometer has malfunction?" But she knew three were down to 138.

Youko sensei grabbed the phone, called Ishigami, and then promptly hung up.

"It's going back up," Shizuru said.

They watched as the temperature rose and finally settled at 150.

"How's that possible?"

The door behind them opened, and Ishigami stepped in. He approached them, expressionless.

Youko sensei handed him the report. He glanced up and down, then eyed her. "What is it?"

"The graph showing room temperature."

"We didn't change it." The fire in Youko sensei's eyes betrayed her passion. She was a scientist, not easily excitable, but at the moment, no matter how she tried to hide her feelings, she looked as if she might explode.

He glanced at the chart again. Studied it in silence. His eyes lifted, but he did not lower the paper. "You're suggesting that she did this?"

"Do you have another idea?"

He obviously didn't.

"When is she scheduled to come out?" Ishigami asked.

"She has an afternoon drill with the others," Shizuru said.

Ishigami set the report on the table. "Bring her out now."

Youko sensei had talked often about the quantum physics behind the brain's ability to affect its surroundings, but Shizuru had never seen evidence of it. The notion that Natsuki had actually managed to control the temperature in her pit by affecting the zero-point field was altogether earth-shattering. It may have been proven that empty space between atoms was filled with large amounts of energy, but she wasn't sure she was ready to believe that Natsuki could affect this field.

"Put her on the range," Ishigami said. "Let's see what she can do."

"She'll need a few hours to normalize and eat."

"She shoots before she normalizes."

"Every person has their limits."

"We've broken her limits many times."

"The drill she faces this afternoon will test her shooting in an optimum setting before stretching her to her limits," Shizuru said. "I suggest we wait as planned."

Ishigami looked at her, and the darkness in his eyes made Shizuru regret her suggestion. But he didn't object, he simply turned and left the room.

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	3. Chapter 3

Hello,

thanks to all those who reviewed it feels good getting all the reviews...yea...good reviews...must...get...more

anyways here is chapter 3 and tomor...the next day it will be chapter 4 so enjoy and please do not feel threaten by the characters they are under strict orders to not hurt the readers...

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING!!!

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Reito watched the women cross the compound with her typical nonchalant manner of walking. Tall and a nice body, with long raven hair and a small nose. She had become ruthless as required, but her soft eyes contradicted her stature.

_I am lost, I am Found_-Natsuki was trapped between the two without the slightest clue as to how lost and found she would truly be before it was all over. Lost to herself, found to the darkness that waited below hell.

Reito wanted to grin and spit at the same time. It was all growing a bit tedious, but he'd known from the moment he walked into this terrible camp that he would grow bored before the fun began.

There was no way he could adequately describe the depths of his hatred for that women who was stealing the show with all her move-this-move-that emotional control nonsense.

He took a deep breath and shifted his eyes toward the pretty girl. Shizuru. She was playing her part well enough, but he wasn't sure she could follow orders. Her emotions could get in the way, despite all her training. Did she know the true stakes? He wasn't sure. Either way, he wouldn't trust her. He'd come here to make sure Natsuki did what was expected of her, or kill her if she didn't, and Reito was hoping it would be the latter, because he hated Natsuki more than he thought humanly possible.

If they only knew why he was here, what lay in store for them, how he would do it all...My, my.

Nearly five hours had passed since Shizuru liberated Natsuki from her pit. She'd hooked her up to an IV and pumped enough glucose and electrolytes into her system to wake the dead.

She ate a light, balanced meal, then Showered and dressed in her usual training clothes per her instructions. A short run brought her fully back to the present, the physical world outside the tunnel.

Shizuru had asked her to meet her and the others at the southern shooting range precisely at three for a drill. The mental training sessions, like the kind she endured in the pit were now hardly more than a good, hard run. So long as she successfully blocked the pain. But today was different. At some point, she'd tried to split her focus and succeeded. Then she tried to break through the wall in her tunnel and, to her surprise, again succeeded. In fact, if she wasn't mistaken, she had pushed back the heat crowding her safe place.

She wondered if Youko had noticed anything in her detailed charts. Shizuru hadn't said a word of it, but if she wasn't mistaken, the light in her eyes was brighter. Regardless of what caused this, she was glad for her. Shizuru was pleased with her, which made her very happy.

_Where do I come from?_

The stray thought surprised her. She briefly wondered who her mother was, then put the question away. There was no answer to it, she remembered.

They were waiting by the sandbags when Natsuki made her way down the slope to the shooting range. The vegetation had been cleared four thousand yards to the south -she could see trees bordering the intruding forest but no detail from this distance.

There was something ominous about those trees, she remembered now. Oh yes. The compound didn't need a fence to keep them in, because if any of them stepped beyond the trees, their implants would send a debilitating electrical charge into their brains. She tried it on two occasions with disastrous effects, but she couldn't remember anything beyond that.

Natsuki focused on the three people who were in the scope of her immediate concern. Shizuru, Reito, and Nao.

The recruits were not allowed to talk to one another except as required by their training. As far as she remembered, she'd never spoken to either Reito or Nao without Shizuru present.

Nao. The sight of her standing in black slacks and brown pullover, facing the south with her arms crossed, evoked nothing but curiosity in her. Did she have a pit? Nao looked at her without expression. Her hair was red, shoulder-length, framing a face with fine features. She was always quiet hard to read. She could smile softly and slit your throat before you realized that her smile had left her face.

Natsuki wasn't sure if she liked her or not.

Reito. From twenty yards he looked angry, but this was nothing new. The man often looked angry, as if he resented being in Natsuki's company. He didn't strike Natsuki as a man who needed to be thought anything by either Ishigami or Youko. Shizuru said that the exercise kept Reito's skills sharp. One day, when Natsuki was truly skilled, maybe she would learn to do what Reito did.

"Hello, Natsuki." Shizuru smiled. "You look refreshed."

"Thank you. I feel good."

Not a word from the other two. Shizuru faced all three of them. "The reactive targets are set at twelve hundred yards. You will each use the M40A3 with a 150-grain boat tail bullet today. All three rifles have been sighted in at four hundred yards."

She walked to the left, eyeing Nao. "You will expend ten rounds on the reactive targets. Consider it a warm-up. Beyond the yellow reactive targets are the static targets. Do not shoot these targets. Reito, take the far left; Nao, center; Natsuki, on the right. Take your places, find the targets, and fire at will."

Natsuki turned to her right and walked to her sandbag. The rifle leaned against a small fiberglass rack by the sandbags. It wasn't just any M40A3, she saw. It was hers. Warmth spread through her chest. She wanted to run for the weapon, to pick it up gingerly and examine it to be sure they hadn't scratched it or hurt it in any way. Her heart began to pound, and she stopped, surprised by her strong emotional reaction to the weapon.

A hand touched her elbow. "It's okay," Shizuru said softly. "Pick it up." She looked at her sheepishly, as if she'd given her the very gift she'd been wanting for so long. And she had, she realized.

Shizuru winked. "Go on, it's yours."

Natsuki walked to the rifle, hesitated only a moment, then picked it up and turned it in her hands. So familiar. Yet so new. Did she always feel this way when she picked up her rifle? Did the others feel this way?

She lifted her eyes and saw that Shizuru was watching her with interest. Maybe some understanding. She knew that the rifle she held was nothing more than a tool formed with precision, but then, so was a woman's hand. Or an eye. It was what she could do with this rifle that fascinated her.

"Thank you," She said.

"You're welcome. Shoot well today."

"I will."

Shizuru walked toward the others.

Natsuki dropped to one knee and set the box of cartridges on top of the sandbag. A quick examination satisfied her that the mechanisms of the rifle were in perfect working order. She pressed five rounds into the magazine, disengaged the bolt, slid a cartridge into the barrel, seated the bolt, and took a deep breath.

She was eager-too eager. After the jumble/void of the last day/week, she felt fully alive, kneeling here, staring down range.

It was a perfect day for killing.

Natsuki unfolded the bipod and lay down behind the rifle. She drew the weapon back into her shoulder and glassed the field.

Three rubber cubes-yellow, blue, and red, each five inches square-sat on the ground. The yellow was hers. When hit, the cube would bounce, thus its identification as a reactive target.

She steadied her aim, lowered her heart rate, released the air in her lungs, and focused on a spot roughly five feet above and slightly to the left of the yellow cube. She slowly increased the tension in her trigger finger.

Her rifle jerked in her arms. It took the bullet almost two seconds to reach the yellow cube. When it did, the cube bounced high, rolled to the left, and came to a rest. Natsuki ejected the spent shell and chambered a second cartridge. Her body hugged the earth. She was a killer. Her preferred instrument was the rifle, and her weapon was her mind.

Natsuki shot the second round, waited for the target to bounce, reloaded quickly, and reacquired the yellow cube.

She was a woman who loved and hated only if and when it facilitated her objective to kill. To kill she had to survive. Survive and kill, this was her purpose.

She sent a third round speeding down the range.

"Do you know what happened today?" Shizuru asked behind her and to her right.

She held the scope over the target until it settled for a fourth shot.

"No," she said.

"In the pit you know what you did?"

Natsuki considered the question, trusting her instincts on the fourth shot. She was talking about the heat.

"No."

"Did you try to lower the temperature in your pit?"

"Yes."

Shizuru lay down beside her, glassing the field with binoculars. "You succeeded, Natsuki."

So. Her mind was connected to her environment through this quantum field that Youko had told her about.

She shot the target for the fifth time. Successfully. Chambered her last round.

"Do you see the white target on the right farther down range?"

She moved her scope. "Yes."

"It's over three thousand feet. Can you hit this target for me?"

Shizuru knew she could-she'd done so many times in a row. Natsuki answered anyway. "Yes."

"But by the time the bullet reaches that distance, its parabolic rotation will be nearly ten inches in diameter. You can't control the bullet's wobbling to place it where you want in that ten-inch circle."

"Correct."

"But if you can lower the heat in your pit, can you affect the flight path of a bullet?"

Natsuki eased off the scope and looked at her. Was she serious?

"I want you to shoot your next five shots at the static target. Shoot for the center."

"I was in a different place when I lowered the heat."

"Go there now."

"I was in the pit for three days. My mind was focused. And I don't know what I did. I created a second tunnel, but beyond that I don't really know what happened."

"You can't create a second tunnel now?"

She didn't know. Even if she could, she had no idea how to affect the flight path of a bullet leaving the end of her barrel at twenty-nine hundred feet per second.

"Please, they insist."

She would try, of course. She would do whatever they wanted. She would do it for Shizuru, but she was quite sure she would fail. And what were the consequences of failing this time?

"They don't care if you succeed or fail; they only want you to try."

Natsuki nodded.

The air had become still; there were no shots from the others. There was a path between where she lay and the white target. She lowered her heart rate so that she would have enough time to shoot between beats. Made her muscles like rubber so there would be no movement conducted through her bones into her shoulder, or forearms, or trigger finger.

It was time to send the bullet. She knew that she would hit the target if she shot now.

But they wanted more.

She brought all of her mind to the bullet. For a moment everything around her simply stopped. Her breathing, her heart, the air itself seemed to pause.

Natsuki sent the bullet.

She couldn't see the impact on a static target at this distance, but through her scope, Shizuru could.

"Again," she said.

"Did I hit it?"

"Again," she repeated.

Natsuki reloaded and repeated the same shot five times to her urging.

"Did I hit it?"

She lowered her binoculars. "You did fine, Natsuki. I'm very proud of you."

Shizuru handed her the binoculars and walked toward the others, who were watching patiently.

"We're going to play a game," She said loudly enough for all of them to hear. Natsuki lifted the binoculars and quickly studied the target.

She'd hit it, she saw, but in a scattered pattern, with no more accuracy than any other time. The marks winked out as the target electronically cleared itself. She lowered the binoculars. Shizuru had reset the target with the remote in her hand. She offered her a small smile and continued.

"Each of you will lie down in a crate with your weapon. The crates have been treated with a chemical that agitates hornets. You have a six-inch opening in the front panel through which to shoot at the reactive twelve-hundred-yard targets. Once you are ready, three dozen black hornets will be funneled into each of your crates. Their stings will adversely affect your muscles. The first to place five rounds into the target will win this contest. Do you understand?"

None of them responded.

"Good. The winner will be freed and given a knife. The next one to succeed will be armed with a handgun and will hunt the winner until one of you is either killed or incapacitated. The third will be left in the crate for an additional five minutes and then taken to the infirmary."

Natsuki dropped the binoculars on a sand bag and picked up her rifle.

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review...anyone... 


	4. Chapter 4 part I

Here is chapter four and i divided it into two parts so this is the first part and then the second part will come later. After that, I will post chapter five and you'll be caught up to the story so far as i have posted it on my LJ.

Sooooooooo...

Denisen gave me an idea, and i think i should wait a bit before i post the rest of the two chapters, anyways, i think i'll do that thanks Denisen

Disclaimer: I don't own anything so therefore you can't sue me

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Natsuki lay on her belly in the narrow crate, rifle extended, ready, with the barrel an inch from a small wooden door she assumed would be opened when it was time to shoot. A strong medicinal scent made it hard to breathe.

The implications of her predicament were clear. She was expected to win. Neither Nao nor Reito could place five rounds in a target at two thousand yards as quickly as she could.

And if she won, one of the others would hunt her. She would have less hornet venom in her system, but the hunter would have a gun. She wasn't sure which she preferred, to be the hunter filled with poison, or the hunted with far less poison. They both sounded like a kind of death.

A sharp pain cut into her neck, and she gasped. This pain had sliced past the wall of protection she'd erected. How?

Panic crowded her mind. She'd felt fear before, and she knew how to shut it down. It had to go first, before she could shut down her nerves. She couldn't hope to hit the target until she'd rid herself of pain.

She disassociated her mind from the pain and let herself fall into a soft black pillow. There she formed her tunnel from the blackness.

Another sting on her shoulder, but this one hurt less. The poison would affect her more than the pain now.

Slowly the sound faded.

Slowly the pain eased.

Then she was in.

She snapped her eyes open and peered through the scope, no longer noticing the blur of insects streaking by. She didn't even know where they were biting her now, only that they were.

She squeezed her trigger finger and sent the bullet away.

Natsuki didn't know how long it took her to fire the five rounds; she only knew that she was finished. And that the crate's lid had been pulled off.

She clambered to her feet and handed Shizuru her rifle. Pain flared through her body. Shizuru was yelling something at the guards. "Two pills only. Handgun, remember."

She placed a knife in Natsuki's right hand, two pills on her left. "These won't help the pain, but they'll minimize the swelling and keep you alive. I will go with you."

She shoved the pills into her mouth and stumbled forward, glancing back at the other two crates. The buzzing inside would cover any sound she made now, but it wouldn't take either assassin long to find her tracks.

She cleared her head, turned to the north, and ran into the compound with Shizuru close behind.

The sun would be down in three or four hours. _Nothing matters more than survival._ This one thought hung before Natsuki, calling her forward.

She understood less of the world than she once had, but some things she understood better, and one of them was survival.

The other was killing.

Shizuru ran lightly on her feet beside her, trusting her completely. At one time she would have offered her advice, but those days were behind her. She could now survive by instinct.

"Do you have the key to my pit?" Natsuki asked.

"Yes. Do you think-"

"To the door in the wall behind my chair?"

Hesitation. "Yes."

The guns were still booming behind them. Natsuki veered west and ran for her bunkhouse.

"Natsuki, are you sure-"

"We have to get in before they're out. Faster."

They Sprinted the last hundred yards, then flew up the steps and into the concrete barracks. The air was suddenly quiet. One of them, Likely Reito, had completed the task.

Natsuki spun back to be sure they'd left no marks on the cement steps.

None. She closed the door.

"Into the pit," She whispered. They descended the stairs on the fly.

Shizuru didn't need her key for the pit; it was open. But the small door at the back was secured tightly with a dead bolt, which Natsuki assumed could be operated from either side of the door.

"Where's the key?"

Shizuru pulled out a small ring of keys from her pocket. "I hope you know what you're doing."

"I do."

She pulled the door open, revealing a dark earthen tunnel reinforced with wooden beams. She stepped in and pulled Shizuru in behind her.

"Do you know where this leads?" Shizuru asked.

"No. Lock the door."

"There's no light. The door on the other end is locked."

"Hurry, please. Lock it."

Shizuru pushed the door shut, fumbled for the lock, and engaged the dead bolt.

"Is there anything in this tunnel?" Natsuki asked.

"No. It's for emergency evacuation. Leads to the hospital."

"It's a direct path? Straight?"

"Yes."

Natsuki turned and walked into the darkness.

"I can't see a thing. Where are you going? There's nowhere to go."

Natsuki reached back for her, felt her stomach, then her hand. Together they walked into the inky blackness. "Tell me when you think we've reached the halfway point."

She stopped her in twenty second. "Here." Natsuki knew that they were nowhere close to halfway, but she decided it was far enough, so she stopped. Released her hand.

Silence engulfed them. She listened for any sound of pursuit but expected none. Even if Reito or Nao stumbled into her pit, neither had a key to the tunnel. There was no way they could verify her presence here.

"Now what?" Shizuru whispered after a minute.

A tension in her voice betrayed her insecurity. She'd been through training similar to her own, but she didn't know how far they'd pushed her. And she hadn't been in a pit since her coming. Perhaps that explained her fear of it.

"Now we wait," She said. "Please don't talk."

Natsuki squatted and waited.

"How long are we going to stay here?" Shizuru whispered.

"Until I've rested and have the advantage," Natsuki said aloud, thankful for the dirt walls that absorbed the sound of their voices.

She could hear Shizuru moving toward her. Only now had Shizuru realized that Natsuki had moved away from her during the last hour so that she could hear above her breathing. It occurred to Natsuki that she was her protector here. In the tunnel, she was the master and Shizuru was the student. It made her proud.

"Why did you move away from me?" Shizuru asked, closer now.

"I wanted to be able to hear," she said standing.

"And?"

"They entered my pit, walked around, and then left."

"This is like your mental tunnel," she said.

"Yes."

For a long while they stood in silence.

"When do you think you will have the advantage?" she asked.

She shrugged in the darkness. "A day."

"A day? That long?"

"Patience is always-"

"I know about patience. I thought you that, remember? But how will a day help you?"

"Do you want to leave now?"

"I'm only the observer. I stay with you."

"Maybe it'll be less than a day," she said.

Natsuki really was in complete control, not only of Shizuru's safety, but in some ways of how she felt. Shizuru settled to the ground and she joined her.

"Do you mind if I touch you?" Shizuru finally asked. "As much as I hate to admit it, the darkness is a bit disorienting."

"Okay," she said.

Shizuru felt for her knee, then found her hand. "Okay?"

"Okay."

They held hands in the dark for a while.

"Do you know what's so special about you?"

Natsuki didn't answer.

"Your innocence. You're like a child in some ways."

A child? Natsuki wasn't sure what to think about that.

"But there's a woman inside, waiting to be set free," Shizuru said. "I'm very proud of you."

Her statement confused her, so she said nothing.

"Do you remember Nevada?" Shizuru asked.

"Yes."

"I've always wanted to go to the desert. It's so vast. Uncaring of the rest of the world. It's just there, no matter what else happens. Golden sands and towering rocks. Coyotes that roam the land, free. When this is all over, I think I'd like to go to the desert in Nevada."

"When what is over?" Natsuki asked.

She didn't answer for a while. "It's just a fantasy," Shizuru said.

"Something stuck in my head. I can imagine you and I walking into the desert like this, hand in hand, away from all of this. Do you ever think about leaving?"

"To the desert?"

"Not necessarily. Just leaving this place."

"I can't leave."

"I know, but if you could. If you didn't have the implant, would you go?"

"I don't know. It's not so bad here."

Another long stretch of comfortable silence filled the tunnel.

"The final test will be very difficult. If you fail, Ishigami will kill you, assuming the challenge hasn't killed you already. Ishigami doesn't want anyone to succeed-it's his way of making sure only the best enter the field."

Shizuru tightened her grip on Natsuki's hand. "But I want you to succeed."

"I always succeed," she said.

"If you do, you'll be leaving this place."

"But with you. And then we'll return."

"Yes, with me. Always with me."

"Will I always be in training?"

"Is there any other way to stay sharp?"

"Do you enjoy hurting me?" she asked.

Natsuki had no clue where the question had come from. She was talking without really thinking. Half of her mind was still in the darkness, focused on the current objective, listening for any sound of approach. The other half was asking this odd question.

Shizuru wasn't answering her.

"I know that your hurting me leads to strength," she said, ashamed that she'd asked. "You're helping me be strong. I'm thankful for that."

Shizuru removed her hand from hers. She'd hurt her feelings! Shizuru was upset with her. She wanted to shut her emotions down now, but she wondered if she really should. She wanted to comfort her heart. She was Shizuru's protector, every part of her, which meant she could only protect her emotions with her own.

It was the first time she'd thought of her role this way. But she felt powerless to do anything, so she just sat in the darkness and let herself feel uncomfortable.

Shizuru started to cry. The sound was very soft, a sniffing followed by a nearly silent sob.

Natsuki reached her hand into the darkness. When she found her, she realized that she'd rolled over to her side and had curled up in a ball.

She lay on the tunnel's dirt floor, sobbing softly.

But why? Didn't Shizuru know that she loved her? Maybe she didn't. Natsuki rested her hand on her hip, frozen by awkwardness. She couldn't remember her ever being so hurt.

It made her want to cry.

Natsuki laid her head on Shizuru's lap. Before she could stop herself, she was crying with her. She didn't know why.

Shizuru cried harder then, which made her feel an even deeper sorrow. A flood of anguish gushed from the darkest place in her soul, and she couldn't stop herself. She began to shake with sobs.

It must have lasted for a full five minutes. Strange and terrifying minutes.

Shizuru sat up and wrapped her arms around her. She cried into her neck. "I'm sorry, Natsuki. I don't want to hurt you. I hate myself for hurting you. I just..." Her voice was choked off by sobs.

Natsuki sat back against the tunnel wall like an emptying sandbag, still unable to stop the flow of unidentified grief. She loved Shizuru. She loved her so very much. The pain she was feeling was her fault. How could she have done this to the only person who cared about her?

They held each other for a very long time until their crying finally subsided. Then stopped. Then they sat in silence.

And Natsuki began to forget the way she had felt. Reito was out there somewhere, waiting.


	5. Chapter 4 part II

Woah...it feels like forever since i last updated...anyways heres the second part. expect some Reito vs Natsuki going on in this.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

"It's time." Natsuki said.

They'd been in the dark tunnel for almost a day, she guessed. They didn't speak of their emotional outburst, but Shizuru kissed her on the lips and assured her that it wasn't her fault. She loved her very much. They'd left it at that, much to Natsuki's relief.

"Can you open the door that leads to the hospital?"

"You don't want to exit through the hospital."

"My opponent, likely Reito, is either there or waiting upstairs in my barracks."

Shizuru considered this for a moment, then agreed. "I'll exit through the hospital and leave the door unlocked."

Natsuki started to leave, but Shizuru held her arm. "No matter what happens here, Natsuki, remember that I love you."

"I will."

Shizuru reached in the dark and kissed her on the cheek.

"Remember."

Natsuki waited until Shizuru opened the door at the far end before walking toward her pit. She hurried up the stairs, found the barracks empty, and waited by the window, eyes on the hospital a hundred yards away. From her vantage she could see anyone who attempted to leave the building.

The doors to the hospital flew open. Shizuru ran out. Still no sign of Reito. Was there a problem? Maybe something had happened after they'd gone into hiding. Why was she sprinting toward her bunker?

Shizuru pulled up to the door and threw it open. "He's not there!"

She was telling her this? Ordinarily she would only observe, never report. Shizuru had unlocked the door for her only at Natsuki's suggestion, not hers. The games were always between the recruits, never the handlers. Yet she was telling her that Reito wasn't at the hospital.

And then she knew for herself that Reito wasn't at the hospital, because he stepped up behind Shizuru.

Natsuki dropped into the stairwell. She landed on the fifth step and saw then that Reito didn't have the gun trained on him.

He'd shoved it into Shizuru's temple and was pushing her into the bunkhouse.

"You go, she dies," Reito said.

Natsuki's first thought was that this maneuver had been planned by both of them. Why else would Reito have waited for Shizuru to arrive before stepping out? The coordination was too tight.

Reito smiled and jerked Shizuru's head back by her hair. "She's right. I'm not in the hospital because I'm here, and I'm here because I knew within the hour yesterday that _you_ were here, in your pathetic little pit. I've been waiting too. I didn't expect such eager assistance from your lover. In the middle of the room, or she gets a bullet."

"He's lying!" Shizuru cried. "What do you think you're going to do, shoot me? Youko sensei will kill you with the flip of a switch in a matter of seconds."

"I didn't hear anyone say that I couldn't use you to get to her. I have more than forty bites on my body, and they all tell me I should kill Kuga. Why not the woman who loves Kuga as well? We all know you're nothing more than a mouthpiece for Ishigami. I doubt he'd miss you that much."

To Natsuki he said, "Get up here, wonder girl."

She came out of the stairwell in two long steps.

"Knife on the floor," Reito said, pressing the gun into Shizuru's cheek.

Natsuki backed toward the middle of the room.

"Knife on the floor!"

She raced through alternatives. In the moment Reito removed his gun from Shizuru's head to adjust his aim, Natsuki could and would throw the knife. Reito knew this. A quick flip of Natsuki's wrist and Reito would have a knife buried in his eye.

Natsuki could throw the knife now, while the gun was pointed at Shizuru's temple, but a single spasm from Reito and she would die.

There were several other alternatives, but the only ones in which her and Shizuru lived depended on Reito. Would he really hurt Shizuru? The man would kill her, Natsuki was sure of that, but killing a handler was another matter.

Unless there was more to it.

There was a way for Shizuru, Natsuki saw. She might be able to get them out of this situation. But would she? If she dropped her knife now, she would be completely dependent on her to move at the right time, or Reito would likely kill her.

Their eyes met, but she saw no encouragement in Shizuru, only fear.

"Now I count, and her shoulder goes first," Reito said. "Please don't make this difficult on yourself. Just drop the knife."

Natsuki opened her fingers and let the knife clatter to the floor.

Reito smiled. He licked Shizuru's ear. "Had to throw in some cliché, you know."

_Cliché? Something to be expected._

"Now it's time for me to shove her to the side. That's the way it always goes. The villain shoves the princess to one side, thus making a convenient opening for the prince to kill the villain without hurting the princess."

His words seemed out of place. But that was exactly what Reito wanted. Natsuki had been here before.

Reito shoved Shizuru to his left. "No interference, princess. I haven't hurt you, remember that. I simply used you the way Kuga used you to escape. No penalties."

He was right. She wouldn't interfere. She couldn't, not without facing consequences from Ishigami. The training protocols were inflexible.

Shizuru glared at Reito but stayed where she was.

The man leveled his gun at Natsuki. "You do know that I've been given permission to kill you. _Incapacitate_ or _kill_ were the words used, I believe."

Natsuki said nothing.

"The fact that you stand there like a piece of wood makes me think I should just get it over with. On the other hand, a bullet through the leg would be a little more interesting, wouldn't it?"

For a long moment he stared at Natsuki. Then he tilted the gun down and aimed at Natsuki's thigh.

The room rocked with a thunderclap.

But it wasn't Reito's gun. It was Shizuru's. She had a gun in her right fist, pointed at Reito, who was looking at a bloodied hand. His gun had flown across the room.

"No," Shizuru said. "It doesn't end like this. Natsuki had you beat."

The man lowered his hand and let it bleed on the floor. His face was white, but he showed no other outward sign of pain.

Shizuru walked over to Reito and slammed her gun into his temple. He dropped, unconscious.

_She's broken the rules. She's saved me but only by breaking the rules at terrible risk to herself._

"No one hears about this," Shizuru said in a low voice. She stared at Natsuki with shining eyes. "Not a word, you hear, Natsuki? Remove this from your memory. Remember only if you ever doubt my loyalty to you."

"Why did you do this?"

"He was going to shoot you through the leg. I love you."

"My leg would have healed."

"Not in time for your mission. As far as Ishigami is concerned, you shot Reito."

"What will Reito say?"

"What I tell him to. Youko sensei's waiting for you."

Natsuki stepped past them, but she paused at the door and turned back. Shizuru's crimson eyes searched her soul.

Natsuki would die for her.

* * *

just a little note...one more chapter and you'll be caught up with my LJ.

Hurray!


	6. Chapter 5

Hey there, here is chapter 5 and know you're all officially caught up with the story as it is on my LJ.

So this chapter has no shiznat in it or any other character you might know, so basically there all made up. But, it does move the plot forward and things might became a little clearer...a little...maybe...not really...

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

The president of the United States, Randy, his spiritual advisor, Chris Abraham, and the CIA director Frank Carter set in the Air Force One's conference room.

"So you mind telling us this plan involving the X Group, Frank?"

Randy had already had an earlier conversation with the head of special operations about the X Group. Apparently they had no apparent political or ideological interests. They were strictly guns for hire. Mercenaries. They were run by a man named Ishigami Wataru. According to what they know, they use cutting edge psychiatric science to train their people. Phase-three memory wipes, torture, extreme forms of psychological manipulation. But they got results. The assassins employed by the X Group were first reduced to shells of their former identities and then trained as extremely loyal and lethal killers.

Randy believed that perhaps there was a plan to deal with the Iranian minister of defense, Simm Rosfez, using the X Group. Rosfez might be crooked to the bone but killing him would not resolve the dilemma with the Iranian initiative. It would only fuel their fires. He had called up this meeting to confirm his suspicions.

"We all know about this little assassination club. According to Samuel's vision, the X Group is connected to one of my greatest enemies. I think that qualifies me to hear everything and anything, don't you?"

Carter looked as if he was still trying to figure out whether to take the whole business of this vision seriously. But then, so was Randy.

Carter cleared his throat. "Well, some ideas have been thrown around. I'm not sure you'd approve-"

"Just give it to me straight. Well go from there."

"Okay." Carter spread both hands. "No plans at this point, actually. I think you'll see why."

"Please. Just tell me."

"Carter frowned."What if, and I really do mean _what if_, Simm Rosfez were eliminated? His death could fatally undermine his initiative."

"First of all, any such plan would be highly illegal and morally reprehensible. Second, he'd become a martyr. His death would probably energize support for his plan."

"Unless Rosfez was eliminated because he was attacking innocents. As a terrorist."

"Terrorist? I don't follow."

"What if Rosfez was killed while attempting to assassinate one of his enemies?"

"Such as?"

"Such as you, sir."

Randy wasn't sure he'd sure he'd heard correctly. He coughed once. "You can't just tell the world that such and such a leader was planning on killing me and so we took him out. We're not at war."

"Assassinations are provoked by policy rather than war. In this case, we're talking about a policy that would threaten the national security of our ally Israel. I'm not just suggesting or defending this course of action; I'm merely explaining that rationale." He put his palms on the table. "As for the world believing, you're right. The assassination attempt would have to be real. If it was, and we could produce definitive evidence linking Mr. Rosfez to the attack, we would win world sympathy by taking him down."

"You're actually suggesting that we stage an assassination attempt on me and blame it on Rosfez? And then kill him?"

"That was the idea, sir. Not the plan, mind you. There are some problems, of course, but it does have some merit if you consider-"

"No. It would never work. And even if it did, it breaks more international laws than...Forget the laws-its murder."

"As are all assassinations. Maybe you could declare war on Iran to cover our moral quandaries and send a hundred thousand men and women to their graves instead. Forgive the sarcasm. My point is, assassinations save lives. Kill one drug lord, save the hundred men he will kill. Kill one tyrant, save a hundred thousand of his subjects. In the case of Rosfez, I'm not sure I follow Dr. Abraham's reasoning, but I think we all agree that this man's life will cost the world dearly."

"Point made," Randy said. "But Rosfez is not a threat."

"Not today, no. Maybe Chris has some thoughts on this."

They both looked at Chris Abraham, who regarded them with an ashen face. He pushed his chair back. "Forgive me, gentlemen. I'm afraid I must excuse myself from this discussion. I would say you're both right, but I'm not in a position to inform your final decision. Do you mind Randy?"

He'd never known Chris to refuse a good philosophical debate. Clearly he was plagued by more than the current issue at hand. And just as clearly he wasn't going to divulge any more.

"Feel free to use my quarters to get some rest if you need it."

"Thank you, but I think I'll be fine. Please, continue." Chris left the room and closed the door behind him.

Randy returned to Carter. "What happens to the people involved in the assassinations, or fake assassinations as the case may be?"

"They probably may need to be eliminated."

"So more innocents die."

"Soldiers, guns for hire, not innocents."

"And this is where the X Group comes in," Randy said. "You're planning on hiring the X Group to take out Rosfez as a matter of foiling his nonexistent assassination attempt on me."

"It's a thought. You would need to agree, of course."

"Exactly when were you planning on discussing this with me?"

"I believe I have a meeting scheduled with you this Friday."

"Randy pushed back his chair. "Cancel it. The answer is no. I don't care what rationale you throw my way, I won't be involved in this. If you can find a way to turn Rosfez into a bumbling idiot who makes a fool of himself at the summit, I'm all ears. But I don't play politics with bullets."

"Of course, sir. It was just an option."

"An option you were ready to recommend."

"Not without your endorsement. Consider it a nonstarter."


	7. Chapter 6

Here is chapter 6 enjoy

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Because Shizuru had told her that she was going to be tested and then, if she succeeded, go into the field in two weeks, Natsuki kept track of the days for the first time in months.

After speaking with Youko for a long time, she went into the pit again, to fight the cold this time. She was able to add a few degrees to the room's temperature. Maybe five, once ten, Youko told her.

She was trying to help her believe, but she already did believe, so she mostly just listened. Youko was sure that she could do more, but she couldn't.

On three different occasions, they brought her to the hospital for additional training, as they had for many months. They asked her to lie on a metal bed with her head inside the large white magnetic resonance imaging machine, put drugs into her veins, clipped electrodes to her toes and fingers, and then asked her to repeat what she knew for long periods of time. If she got the answers wrong, they turned dials and sent sharp shafts of electricity through her body.

She couldn't turn off the pain easily when they did this, because she had to focus on the right answers. In the early days, she'd passed out nearly every time. Now she rarely gave them a wrong answer. Her memory was very good.

When she wasn't in the hospital or in the pit, she was with Shizuru, practicing. She would often be put into a room with several objects and a fixed amount of time to create a weapon. Next to focus, improvisation was the assassin's greatest asset.

Shizuru told her that both Nao and Reito would do the tasks as easily. In fact, they were better than her in many disciplines, particularly Reito, who had more natural strength and speed. But Natsuki had the better mind, she told her. And the mind is an assassin's greatest weapon.

Whenever they were pitted against each other, Reito always held the edge. In hand-to-hand, in knife wielding, in strategic field exercises that challenged both reaction time and decision making, Reito was better. The only clear edge that Natsuki had was her ability to control her emotions and her bodily functions, which in turn made her the better sniper.

If all three were compared head-to-head in all disciplines, their rank would fall thus: Reito, Natsuki, and Nao, but not by much.

In all of Natsuki's training, a single word called to her, like mother urging her forward. Through her tunnel.

_Believe. Just believe, Natsuki, and you will find the light at the end of the tunnel._

When Shizuru came for her in her pit on the tenth day, she knew by the fear in her eyes that the day for her final test had arrived. She'd survived the last two- the hornets, and before that the W Hotel. Today she would face the ultimate measure of her skill.

"Shower, eat, and report to the hospital," Shizuru said.

They stood on the floor of her pit, looking at each other. Natsuki had always thought she'd be proud on this day, but the darkness in Shizuru's eyes ruined her confidence.

"You're coming with me?" she asked.

"No, not this time, Natsuki."

"Do you know what they'll ask me to do?"

"They wouldn't tell me. They insist that I remain here."

"In my pit? Why?"

"Not down here, necessarily. Just in your bunker. They said it wouldn't be long."

Natsuki put her hand on the metal chair, unsure she wanted to leave Shizuru here and cross the field to the hospital alone.

Shizuru moved closer to her, eyes fixed on Natsuki's. "You can do this, Natsuki. I know you can. You will succeed. You always have."

She took Natsuki's hand and kissed her on the cheek. "You'll succeed for me. There's nothing you can't do for me. Promise me."

"I promise."

"Kiss me, Natsuki."

Natsuki leaned forward and kissed her lips. The warmth of Shizuru's mouth seemed to swallow her. They lingered, hot, wet, sharing the same space deep in her mind were everything was safe.

"Go to them," Shizuru finally said, smiling softly. "Keep my face and my smile with you."

"I love you," Natsuki said.

"I love you too."

The hospital had three floors including the basement. Natsuki had never been to the basement or the third floor, both of which were off-limits. The main floor had four smaller examination rooms and the main laboratory, were Youko administered her drugs and electric shock treatments that helped her subjects forget and remember.

Natsuki felt well rested and full of energy. She'd eaten twenty carrots, half a bag of jerky, and a chocolate bar to give her the energy she might need for the test. Then she'd showered and dressed in black fatigues and a brown pullover. The shoes she wore were also black, made of canvas with rubber soles. Youko was in the laboratory when she entered it.

"Hello, Natsuki."

"Hello."

"Thank you for coming."

"Shizuru told me to come."

Youko studied her with eyes that seemed to move too quickly. Concern.

"Ishigami is waiting downstairs. Please follow me."

They walked down the hall to a staircase that descended into the basement. Youko opened the metal door that led into the lower floor, and a strong medicinal odor stung her nose. Three large picture windows lined a long white cinderblock hall. Each looked into a room.

Youko opened the door into the first room and waited for her to enter. Natsuki walked past her and studied the room.

Ishigami sat in a brown leather chair with wooden arms, smoking a cigar, watching her. Next to him was a large metal chair with buckled straps on the arm and leg rests. A round leather bowl was suspended above the chair, and from this headpiece extended several large electric cords.

It was an electric chair.

Three guards stood to the left of the electric chair.

"Hello, Natsuki."

Natsuki stared at the chair, at a loss. She'd been told that to fail meant execution, but she'd always imagined a bullet to the brain. The chair didn't make her afraid-she had no intention of failing.

"Today you will either become the third assassin, or you will die,"

Ishigami said. "I've decided that I will electrocute you when you fail. I think you have some considerable strength and should put on a good show, but not even a bull could withstand the electricity that will boil your blood when you fail us today. Do you understand this?"

"Yes."

Ishigami shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, then stood. He ran a finger over the leather headpiece, removing dust, which he smelled and then wiped on his pants.

"If you execute your mission successfully, you won't have to face the chair, but I don't expect it. Tell me, what is your primary objective?"

"To survive."

"To survive why?"

"So that I can execute my mission."

"Good. Your first assassination was to be in five days, but I've decided to make it today. Today you will find and kill your Handler.

If you fail, I will kill you."

"My handler..." Natsuki wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. She had to be sure that she had the right target.

"Shizuru Fujino," Ishigami said. "The one who has ordered you around for ten months. She knows too much and is too valuable to you. It's good to cleanse the system now and then. You know where she is?"

"Yes."

"You have one hour to kill her and bring her body to the hospital." Ishigami pulled out a stopwatch and thumbed the knob on top. Natsuki could not focus. She knew her mission, but she wasn't sure how to execute it.

"You may kill her however you wish," Youko said

"You may go," Ishigami said.

"Thank you, sir." Natsuki dipped her head and ran down the hall. Up the stairs, out into the sunshine.

"Leave us," Youko ordered.

The three guards left the room.

"I want to voice my final objection to this," Youko said. "Both are too valuable."

"Fujino cares for her too much."

"Which only ensures that she will keep Natsuki safe. Shizuru knows that if Natsuki ever betrays us, we'll kill her with the implant. You're stripping away everything I've worked for!"

Ishigami did not reply. He knew what he was taking from her and took pleasure from it. This was his twisted way.

"You think Shizuru is weak?" she demanded. "What do you know about a person's weakness for another being? And this is no ordinary being whose life you're toying with. Her shooting scores have improved all week. She's manipulating the field, for heaven's sake! You would kill someone like that?"

"Then perhaps she's too dangerous."

"Not if you leave her loyalty to me. We've led her to believe that Shizuru is her savior. Our manipulation has been extensive and effective. Last week she gave up a knife to save her in a test I designed for Shizuru. She's dangerous, but not to us, not as long as we have her loyalty. But today you may compromise that."

"One of them has to go. I don't care which."

"Are you listening to me? Their emotional bond is a good thing. I'll leave the killing to you, but you will leave the manipulation to me."

Ishigami drilled her with a dark stare.

"She's been carefully programmed both to survive and to love Shizuru,"

She said. "This scenario presents no solutions for her. We are fighting ourselves with this mad game of yours."

"Then we will kill both of them."

"And accomplish what?"

Ishigami rose, impatient. "If she is what you say she is, then let her prove it, and she will live according to the terms."

"She's a gold mine."

"You favor this one too much. We both know that Reito is the better killer. It takes more than good marksmanship to make a good assassin."

Youko walked to the door and pulled it open. "Reito could kill Natsuki easily enough now, but in a year or two?"

"If she survives today, we'll give her, her year or two. If she dies, she wasn't meant to live."


	8. Chapter 7

So here it is, the seventh chapter of grey.

Sorry for having to wait for an update but it was really a hard week so anyways enjoy the read.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Natsuki walked toward the bunker on legs filled with lead. Her head swam in dizzy circles. She couldn't seem to make sense of the mission that lay ahead of her, much less form a tunnel of security from which to execute it.

So she just walked. She didn't feel the urgency to run. She didn't feel the need to use stealth. She just walked.

Birds chirped from the nearby forest. She wondered if Reito had been faced with a challenge similar to this one. Or Nao. They had both passed their final test and been deployed. Soon she would join them.

But without Shizuru?

Shizuru was her life as much as the blood that coursed through her veins. Killing her was the same as killing herself. She couldn't kill herself. So she just walk.

But she had to kill her. If draining her own blood was the only way to complete her mission, she would drain her blood.

Why would she agree to kill Shizuru? Why did she long for an assassin's life? The answer, clear on some days, eluded her now. But she knew with more certainty than she knew anything else that her role in this operation was far more important than the dilemma immediately before her. Her failure to execute the task would end badly for everyone, including Shizuru.

If killing Shizuru was the only way to become the assassin she was meant to be, she simply had to kill her, no matter how much she cared for her. Shizuru herself would insist.

The truth of the notion suddenly struck her as insane.

Shizuru was standing in the corner when she entered the bunkhouse.

"You're finished?" Shizuru hurried over to her. "What's going on?"

Natsuki closed the door, heard it clank shut, suprised by how loud it sounded. She looked into Shizuru's wide crimson eyes and knew then that she couldn't kill her- not here in the light were she could see her eyes.

When Natsuki spoke she could barely hear her own voice. "Can we go to my pit?"

"Sure. What is it? Are you finished?"

"Maybe we should go to my pit," Natsuki said.

Shizuru's eyes seached hers, concerned. "Sure, Natsuki."

Natsuki let her lead. They descended the stairs, walked down the long hall with its single caged incadescent light, down the concrete steps that led to her pit.

Shizuru paused at the entrance, then entered the dark room lit only by the open doorway. She turned around by her chair and waited for Natsuki to follow her in.

But even here, in the safest place she knew, Natsuki felt powerless to kill her. She needed to go deeper.

"Do you have the key to the tunnel?"

Shizuru glanced at the locked door behind her. "Yes."

"Could we go inside?"

"Tell me what's happening, Natsuki. You're scaring me."

"I will tell you. But we have to go inside the tunnel were it's dark."

She found the key on a ring that she withdrew from her pocket, opened the door, and stepped aside to let her pass first.

Natsuki walked into the inky blackness a full fifty yards before stopping and turning back. Shizuru had left the door open, but only a pale beam of gray followed them in. Shizuru reached for her arm and stared at her face. Natsuki couldn't see her eyes.

"I've never seen you like this. Whatever it is, you can do it, Natsuki. I believe in you. You have to believe in yourself."

"My final test is to kill you."

They were surounded by silence and darkness, and ordinarily Natsuki would have found comfort in both. But she could feel the heat drain from Shizuru's fingers around her arm, and the sensation terrified her.

"They want you to kill me?" she asked.

"If I don't kill you, they will kill me," Natsuki said.

They stood still for a full minute. _When she has the solution, she will give it to me,_ Natsuki tought. But she knew that there was no solution. She would have to choose between killing her or being killed. If it was Youko or Ishigami or anyone else, the choice would be simple.

But her need for Shizuru was as great as her need for her own life.

Shizuru placed her free hand on her chest. "How long did they give you?"

"One hour."

Shizuru lowered both hands and swore in a whisper. "You can't let them kill you!"

She might as well have screamed the words, because in Natsuki's mind they were deafening.

Her voice trembled. "You know very well that I'm expendable. What am I, just a slave girl that came to Youko sensei off the streets-"

"Did you really shoot Reito?"

She still couldn't see Shizuru's eyes. "No. We used special effects to make it look like I shot him. The test was ordered by Youko sensei to test your loyalty to me."

"And is this a test too?"

"No! Ishigami will kill you with pleasure. No doubt, we've destroyed your mind, I'm so sorry, but you have to listen to me. This is it- you have no choice. You have to kill me. It will be my penance."

"But you said it yourself, you only deceived me to save me. It's why you hurt me. And when you did hurt me, you hurt yourself, not just me. We're linked, see? If I kill you, I'll be killing myself. I can't do that."

Shizuru looked at her without speaking. Then she lowered her head so that her forhead rested againts her shoulder. "Dear Lord, what have I done?"

"I'll go to the hospital and see what they do."

"No."

"I've survived electrical currents running through-"

"No!" She slammed her fist againts her chest. "No, no, no! You will not let them kill you!"

Then what? What could she do? Shizuru loved her; she believed it now. Whatever lingering doubts she'd had were denied. She could not kill her. She would not.

Either way, she would die. But there was a way for Shizuru to live.

Natsuki broke away from her and began to pace. "Time is running out." She still had forty-five minutes, but it seemed like only a second. "I have to do something. I can't..."

Desperation was an enemy Natsuki had beat long ago. But this time there was no light at the end of her tunnel. It was black to the bottom, no solution, no objective that could be achieved in this place where she no longer knew who she was.

"It's the end this time, Natsuki," Shizuru said softly. "There's no way out. No tunnel that will lead both of us to safety. I won't let you go to your death. Use the drugs on me. They're the kindest."

Something moved in Natsuki's mind. Something Shizuru had said. She stopped pacing and peered into the darkness. "What did you say?"

"Drugs. They're-"

"No! You said there's no tunnel."

"Is there?"

She began to pace again as the idea blossomed.

Natsuki grabbed Shizuru's arm and ran past her, jerking Shizuru after her. "Is the tank full?"

"The isolation tank? Yes, why?"

"I have to go in. We have to hurry!"

Shizuru ran behind to stay up with her. "What about the mission?"

"I can't kill you."


	9. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: same ol same ol, I own nothing.

* * *

Her plan was simple, but it made no sense, and Shizuru told her that a dozen times before Natsuki lowered herself into the huge cast-iron ball they called the isolation tank. 

It contained warm, salted water, heated to 98.6 degrees. In this water the body felt nothing. Natsuki would wear a modified deep-sea diving mask that effectively cut off all sensory input to the ears, the eyes, the mouth, and the nose, leaving her completely sense-free.

The isolation tank provided the simplest, easiest, and quickest way for most subjects to enter stasis. They rarely used it anymore because Natsuki had advanced beyond the need for such an unwiedly tool, but with it she could move most quickly, and time was now an issue.

She was going deep, she said. Very deep. Deep enough so that she would remain in partial stasis for some time after she came out.

As agreed, Shizuru left her in the tank for thirty minutes before pulling her out, dripping wet. Despite an almost uncontrollable urge to ask her how successful her trip had been, Shizuru worked quietly. She dried Natsuki's body and dressed her in dry clothes. She did it all with the ring of insanity in her ears. In many ways Shizuru felt as if she were performing last rites on an animal to be sacrificed in a sick ritual.

Natsuki had no more than ten minutes to complete her mission when she followed Shizuru back into the tunnel, shoeless.

Shizuru led her toward the hospital, groping through the darkness with her free hand. She could hear Natsuki's breathing, a full fifteen seconds between each breath, and she knew that Natsuki was still deep in the safety of her world.

Shizuru , on the other hand, was in a world of more peril than she could remember ever expecting. She could no longer deny the fact that she felt deeply for Natsuki. She was meant to earn her love, and she had, but in the process, Natsuki had found a way to earn something from her. It made everything she was doing feel like a betrayal.

Leading Natsuki in silence now, she couldn't hold back quiet tears.

Natsuki was going to die. Shizuru had tried to tell her as much, but she was unyielding. Even angry. Now any attempt on her part to change her mind would only compromise Natsuki's concentration.

She unlocked the door at the end of the tunnel and led Natsuki up the stairs into the hospital basement, still vacated of personnel. The door to the execution chamber was open. Natsuki's breathing now came once every twelve seconds. She was normalizing!

Moving as fast as she could, Shizuru strapped Natsuki in as Ishigami had shown her several months earlier when he was in an especially cheerful mood. Each contact had to be coated with gel to ensure conductivity. Normally they shaved the head but there was no time. She attached the electrodes to Natsuki's forehead and to the back of her neck.

The place was as black as any Natsuki could remember.

She formed her tunnel within seconds of entering the tank. She knew that she had a limited amount of time, but time ceased in here, so she didn't think of herself as in a race againts the clock

She was here to protect the tunnel. A terrible force would come to destroy it, she knew. An enemy far greater than any she'd ever faced. She would have to do something new. She couldn't rely on the wall to protect her.

If the faithful could walk into the fiery furnace and not be burned by flames or walk on water without drowning, then her mission wasn't impossible.

It had been done before.

Natsuki swam outside the tunnel, sending wave after wave of the sea to her extremities, to the place where the enemy would attack. It was all in her mind, of course, but the mind was her greatest weapon.

She remembered being strapped into the chair, but these were noises and sensations of another world.

Then voices. Urgent. Arguing, perhaps. Excited, perhaps.

She smiled. Did they know that she was outside the tunnel? Youko would be proud!

The voices ceased, and she knew that the attack was going to come. And then it did, in a red-hot wave that took her breath away and flooded her eyes with blinding light.

"Ten, eleven..." Youko stared at the jerking body through the picture window. There was no way Natsuki could possibly survive!

Inside Ishigami continued his count. "Thirteen, fourteen,fifteen." He nodded at the operator inside. "As agreed."

A loud clank signaled the break. The hall lights brightened, then one sputteredt and winked out. Ishigami stood beside the chair, wearing a look of fascination. At times like these Youko hated him.

She pulled the door open and stopped short. The smell of burned hair was strong. Natsuki was surely dead. If not physically, then mentally.

A vegetable. They'd found no record of a person surviving fifteen seconds at this voltage, the only reason Ishigami had agreed to the terms.

"Natsuki?"

She was slumped againts her straps, headpiece firmly in place.

"She's dead," Ishigami said on her left.

The hall door crashed open, and Shizuru pulled up by the large window. She rushed into the room and brushed past Youko , not caring that her face was still wet with tears.

"Natsuki? Natsuki, please tell me you can hear me." She frantically unbuckled the leather mask and flung it from Natsui's head. She ripped the blindfold off her face. Then she went to work on the attachments on her arms and legs, practically tearing them free.

Youko blinked. Natsuki's cheeks and lips were dry, not wet from tears or saliva. _Surely her eyes would be gone,_ she thought. _Surely her-_

Natsuki's left hand twitshed. Residual current.

"Natsuki?" Shizuru's voice was filled with desperation. She had deeper feelings for Natsuki than even Youko had guessed.

"She's not breathing!" Shizuru cried. She dropped her head againts her chest and listened for a heartbeat. But if Natsuki wasn't breathing now, a full minute since they'd turned off the electricity, she was dead.

As if on response to her thought, Natsuki's left hand lifted an inch from the armrest. Stopped. Then it twisted, and her forearm slowly rose.

Youko was no longer breathing. Natsuki, on the other hand, had to be! Shizuru had seen none of it, not yet.

Natsuki's hand rose slowly and touched the back of Shizuru's head. Her whole body froze.

Natsuki smiled. "Hello, Shizuru."

Natsuki's eyes snapped open.

Shizuru began to cry.

Behind Youko, Ishigami grunted.

"I owe you my life," Shizuru said.

"And I owe you mine." It was true. Without her love for Shizuru, Natsuki didn't think she'd have survived the last ten months, assuming that was truly how long she'd been in training.

They sat at a round table for four in her bunker, eating nuts and jerky.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Shizuru asked.

Natsuki put a peanut in her mouth and bit into it around a big grin. Honestly, she couldn't remember feeling this happy, so she let the feeling ride. "That I'll go into the field."

"Yes. Youko sensei is thrilled. If you were her pet project before, you're her golden calf now."

"And Ishigami?"

Shizuru shrugged. "Ishigami is Ishigami. He lives for killing."

"Like a good father," Natsuki said. "Sets the rules and makes sure they're kept."

Shizuru gave her a strange look. Picked up a piece of jerky and tore off a strip. "You're not angry at him?"

"That would be impractical. He's only doing what he thinks is best. Can any of us argue with the results?"

Shizuru nodded. "What else can you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"If you can protect your body againts the currents of an electric chair, shouldn't you be able to do more?"

"Anyone can ignore heat. I just do it better than most. That doesn't mean I can fly."

Shizuru laughed at that, and Natsuki joined her. The pleasure in her crimson eyes, the soft curve of her neck, the shine in her chestnut colored hair- Natsuki found her stunning. And she'd saved her, hadn't she? She had saved the one she loved.

"I have your mission Natsuki," Shizuru said, flashing a mischievous grin.

"You do?"

"I do." But she didn't offer it.

"When?"

"In five days."

"Where?"

"New York City. They say it's a wonderful place. I can hardly wait."

"Who is it?"

"An Iranian leader named Simm Rosfez."

Natsuki slapped the table with her palm. "Finally," she said and snatched up her glass for a toast. "To Simm Rosfez. May he accept the bullet I send him with grace." Even as she said it, she wondered if such eagerness was appropriate. Was she really so excited to kill?

Shizuru lifted her glass and clinked it againts Natsuki's. "To Simm Rosfez."

* * *

end of arc 1 beginning of arc2 in a way, i suppose. so if any body has any questions still, being the good person i am i will try and answer them on my next update. By the way thanks to all those people who review it means alot, and those of you who read and don't review...YOU SUCK! just kidding i love you all too, but seriously please leave something, let me know your all out there. Like the weird person i am i tend to give my reviewers faces even though i never met them ( by the way, if you're a chick leaving a review, you're hot. according to my little head.) So if you don't review i can't give you a face and maybe even a name like squishy, so please leave a review. The kittens will thank you. 


	10. Chapter 9

So here is the start of the second arc. and yes, i know what you could be thinking

dammit! what took you so long!

but hey. at least i posted it.

anyways, as promised i shall answer questions.

**glowie: **They don't try to escape or anything because, first of all: natsuki is kind of being brainwashed and also because she has an implant in her brain which could mean if she pisses them off all they have to do is push a button and she goes bye, bye. As for shizuru she kind of owes her life to youko and therefore feels the need to be loyal to her even if she doesn't like it at times.

**shiznats: **my question to you is...are you?

**lolanimegirl:** (hands over a kitten) i apreciate your review. and i know how you feel. laziness is also my enemy, thats why i kind of understand the lurkers. for i myself am a lurker/writer.

**NSKruger: **more powers will be revieled as the story progresses. (not really . ) also this story will not go into the whole mai hime theme and such. I never really understood mai hime even though i watched it a million times.

**Krampus: **it works. Anyways your question, the whole concept of the mind really intrigues me, and the fact that it controls your whole body makes it even more amazing. heres a nice tidbit: did you know that people only use like 5 percent of their brain, even einstein only used about thirteen percents ( and he was like a freaking genius), and supposevely the brain is so freaking smart that there are some parts of the body it lets you control and some it controls itself like your heart beating or breathing. Imaging what we could do if we could use 100 percent of our brain. anyways i'm ranting here but about the W hotel its supposed to remain to the readers imagination.

I think thats all the questions and thanks to all the others who reviewed. KNOW ON TO THE STORY!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

The United Nations Middle Eastern summit attracted a large number of protesters, as epected, but the media kept most of their coverage focused on the conflict brewing inside the UN rather than on the street. _Viewers can look only so long on a nineteen-year-old woman with stringy hair waving a banner that reads "The president kills babies."_ Chris Abraham thought, flipping through channels. 

In his way of thinking, such slander should have to defend itself with logic. Even minimal logic. No panel jurors in the country would convict Randy Stenton of killing fleas, much less babies. And yet too frequently, highly educated journalists reported such accusations as serious charges worthy of attention.

He should have gone to New York, even though he could not stop whatever might happen. Now all he could do was pray that God would save those who needed saving and let the rest find their own way.

He sat on the couch in his Connecticut home and switched the news. The president was holding a press conference. Chris turned the volume up.

President Stenton was saying, "...that I strongly objected to forcing israel into a corner where her national defense rest in the hands of a foreign government, which is what the United Nations would be doing in this situation. As I see it, the Rosfez initiative threatens Israel's sovereignty."

Steven Ace of NBC asked, "Sir, the United States is now the only country that opposes the plan. Does that fact pose any problem for you?"

Stenton rplied, "Uniting world opinion always poses problems. Clearly we have a ways to go. But when it comes to standing up for an ally that's facing potential extermination, I think those problems are worth grappling with, don't you?"

"I have a follow-up, if that's okay," Ace said.

"Go ahead, Steve," Stenton replied.

"I understand that there's growing support in congress for the initiative. Are there any plans for a congressional vote on the matter?"

"No," Stenton said, excusin himself with a nod. "Thank you, that will be all." With that, the most powerful man in the world stepped away from the flashing lights and walked through a blue curtain behind the podium.

Chris grinned. _That's it, Randy. No mincing words._

Then again, they both knew that the president was indeed being strong-armed to reconsider by members from both sides of the aisle. Randy had told Chris two days earlier that the price he was paying for his immovability was turning out to be much highew than he'd expected. There was talk on Capitol Hill of shelving his domestic agenda altogether.

World opinion boiled down to what each government thought of the United Nation's charter. In this new role suggested by Rosfez, the United Nations would become the strongest government in the Middle East. Why the leaders of Europe and Asia didn't feel threaten by this was beyond Chris.

Unless, of course, they saw Israel as their enemy as well.

Chris sighed and switched to another news channel. Protester coverage.

Another channel. Commentary on the president's brief conference.

Another channel. ABC was interviewing none other than Simm Rosfez outside the Fordwal-Aristoria, where the UN was hosting several major social events for the dignitaries.

Chris sat back, crossed his legs, and pressed the DVR record button. The Iranian was tall and gaunt with eyelids that hung lower than most. Fair skin and Dark hair, clearly of Persian descent. That the Iranian minister of defense had worked his way into the spotlight with this transparent initiative disgusted Chris.

Rosfez was answering the question with a polite smile.

"Naturally, it's unacceptable. But we believe that the United States will soon see the wisdom of stopping the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East through this peace initiative. You cannot turn your back on suffering for too long."

"What will you do if the United States vetoes the initiative at the summit?" the ABC anchor asked.

A crowd of security personnel and reportes was gathered around the defense minister. A limousine door gaped open behind him, apparently waiting on him.

"We will not rest until we have peace. How can one man stand againts so many?" Rosfez answered. "Now the whole world will unite and bring peace where there has been no peace for centuries."

"Thank you, Mr. Rosfez."

"Thank you," he replied.

Chris saw the reporter, Mary Sanders, for the first time as the camera faced her. "There you have it..."

Chris muted the television. Another journalist in a black sports coat faced the camera, then abruptly turned her back and walked away. The woman was familiar to Chris, but then, so were the faces of a hundred reporters.

Stenton had a fight on his hands. The summit was clearly doing him no favors. Chris had expected nothing else.

But there was something out of place about that reporter in the sports coat. Strange how the memory worked. Deja vu?

Chris started to change the channel. Instead, he pressed the rewind button on the DVR. The reporter's face came and went.

Forward, slow motion this time. Chris paused the picture as the woman truned. He stared for five full seconds before recognition struck.

"No..."

It was her!

Chris stood, studied the profile on the screen. Could he be mistaken? His heart was pounding at twice its normal pace.

She was at the interview with Simm Rosfez. There, in New York!

Still gripping the remote control in his left hand, Chris ran around the couch and snatched up the phone. He dropped the remote on the desk. Dialed the president's number with a shaky finger.

"Dear Lord, help us..."

"Brian Macteary."

"Brian- Brian, it's Chris. I must speak to the president."

"Chris? Chris Abraham?"

"Yes. Please tell him it's important."

"I'm sorry, he's unavailable. Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, I have to speak with him. It's very important."

"I'm under strict orders not to interrupt them. He's just gone into a short meeting with the British prime minister. I can pass him a message when he comes out. Shouldn't be more than fifteen minutes."

Chris quickly considered his options and settled on the only course that presented itself with clarity.

"It's very important that you tell him something in the strictest of confidence. Tell him that I have reason to believe that there will be an attempt made on the life of Simm Rosfez. The security is tight, I'm sure."

"I've never seen more security." Brian paused. "You're saying that someone may be trying to kill the Iranian defense minister?"

"Yes."

"Nothing more? How-"

"Never mind how I know- tell him! I'm taking the first flight I can into New York. Tell him that."

"I should pass this through the Secret Service."

"No! Please, just tell the president and let him decide how to proceed."

"I'm obligated-"

"No, Brian. This isn't a formal threat. Just the president. Promise me!"

The president's press secretary was hesitant. "I'll tell him," he finally said.

* * *

yeah, i know. boring. but it builds up suspense. 


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

Natsuki had never been as happy as she was now, walking the streets of New York with Shizuru. 

She'd been in many excercises that felt like true assignments at the time, but walking down Park Avenue toward the Fordwal-Aristoria with such a show of security as far as the eye could see swept away any lingering suspicions, however small, that this, too, was simply an excercise.

She really was here to kill Simm Rosfez. And that was good. Better than she'd dreamed. She told herself so on many occasions.

Shizuru had taken care of a number of details that facilitated her mision, but in the end, it would be Natsuki's finger on the trigger, sending the bullet on a trajectory determined solely by her. It would make them both proud, Natsuki decided. This was now an emotion that she embraced whenever it presented itself.

As with any assassination, it wasn't only the oppurtunity to kill but the oppurtunity to kill and then escape to one day kill again that drove the preparations leading up to this day. Prior to leaving, Natsuki had spent dozens of hours with Shizuru, viewing video footage provided by the X-Group and planning the hit. They had a good plan.

She made her way toward a security line at Park Avenue and Fifty-second Street, two full city blocks from the Fordwal. She wore a foreign press badge that identified her as Ami Tesler, KYYTP Television. Beside her, Shizuru was identified by a similar badge as Shelly Petriv. _We play our roles flawlessly_, Natsuki thought.

But not as flawlessly as all the others who had delivered them to Park Avenue as two reporters. This feat had required substantial support from Ishigami and his host of contacts, none of whom Natsuki knew or cared to know.

First order of business: establishment of an operations center out of a hotel in Manhattan. This task required renting three seperate rooms in their assumed names. Two were dummy rooms, in which they'd hidden miniature video cameras that sent signals to the third room, which they would actually sleep and operate. One of this dummy rooms, they'd left several spent rifle catridges and a red message painted on the wall "Death to America." They'd made the room appear lived in and demanded that housekeeping not disturb them. Strategically planted clues that would lead investigators to this room and slow down the post-assassination investigation. The delay would buy them time to chart an alternate escape if their planned route was cut off.

The other dummy room was reserved in the event that they needed to switch operational centers. They'd bagged several weapons and hidden them in the toilet tank. Otherwise the room was left undisturbed.

The hotel they selected as their actual operations center was a seedy place in Chinatown called the New York Dragon.

Second order of business: weapons. There was only one weapon Natsuki needed for the actual operation: a rifle. Anything else she might need, she could fabricate out of materials at hand.

Shizuru had obtained the rifle Natsuki would use from a contact in New Jersey. An M40A3, nearly identical to the one Natsuki preferred back at the base, sighted in at four hundred yards, with a Leopold Vari-X 4x12 scope, three-inch eye relief, and nonglare lens. The rifle had been modified for quick disassembly. It fit neatly into a soft-sided tripod bag normally used for a camera.

The host of assassin's tools common to the trade was useless in this setting. No vest, no night-vision equipment, no knives, nothing that smelled or looked anything remotely like something an assassin would wear. In this kill, Natsuki would simply be a shooter who pulled off a shot that only a couple of living souls could pull off.

Third order of business: reconnaissance of both the kill zones and the general area of operations. They'd spent the better part of the previous day walking the streets of midtown Manhattan, riding the subway from Central Park to Chinatown and taking taxis to a dozen destinations both in Manhattan and the two kill zones.

Fourth order of business: rehearsal of execution. Essentially a walk-through of the actual assassination. Natsuki had developed two alternate plans: one for a dinner of dignitaries at the Fordwal, which Simm Rosfez was expected to attend; and one for a press conference schedule at Central Park the following day, which Rosfez would also participate in.

Each zone had been identified by Ishigami- how, Natsuki didn't care. Her task had been to find a place from which to shoot and escape during a narrow window of oppotunity. She'd scouted both zones on foot in the dead of night, and then again the following day while the streets were crowded with cars and pedestrians. One shot would be made from a hotel room. The second, if required, would be made from a garbage bin.

Fifth order of business: performance of their roles, which they were doing now. Part of the X Group's training had involved role-playing. not simply on a conscious level, but deep down where belief was formed. Because she'd frequently been manipulated into assuming a particular identity, Natsuki now found that willfully playing her role came easily.

Natsuki took a deep breath and regarded the bustle of the crowd around her. She judged each face that passed into her field of vision to determine if any threat might hide behind their eyes.

"We should go into the hotel," Natsuki said softly.

Shizuru cast her a natural glance. "It wasn't planned."

"Then we should change the plan. We have time."

Shizuru didn't respond. Any changes were Natsuki's perogative- she trusted her. Her trust made Natsuki proud.

A line of police cars and construction barriers cut off the street ahead. Natsuki walked toward the security check.

The guard eyed her with a steely stare, and Natsuki smiled gently. "Busy day, " she said, shifting to a nondescript European accent. With the blending of cultures in Europe, nearly any would do.

"Yes, it is. Can I see your identification?"

Natsuki unclipped her badge and handed it to the man. They were using a scanner that matched the thumbprint on the card to the thumbprint of the person carriying it.

The guard held out a small scanner, and Natsuki pressed her thumb on the glass suface. A soft _blip_ sounded. After a few moments, the man nodded.

"Thank you, Ms. Tesler."

It took only Shizuru to pass in the same manner. Then they were in the outer security barrier. They would have to watch what they said here. Randomly placed recording devices monitored conversation. According to CNN, not all in the press were thrilled with the new security measure. Evidently they wanted to keep their comments private.

They'd passed through the second security checkpoint and were approaching the entrance to the Fordwal when Simm Rosfez stepped out with a small entourage and was swarmed by journalists.

Natsuki felt her pulse spike. Beside her, Shizuru stiffened slightly- she felt it more than saw it.

It was the first time they'd seen the target in the flesh. Tall, gaunt, dark-haired, Iranian. This was the life Natsuki would end, because that's what she did.

For a moment Natsuki wondered why they wanted him dead. _Who_ wanted him dead? _What _had this man done to invite the bullet? And _why_ was she agreein to kill this man?

The last question came out of the blue, uninvited and unwelcome. The answer was obvious, of course- she wasn't so much agreen to kill this man as she was agreeing to be herself. She was a killer. She was a woman who knew nothing except killing. She could no more not kill than a heart could arbitrarily not beat. If she hadn't always been a killer, she was one now. And she'd been one for as long as she could properly remember.

Her exposure to this noisy, confusing city was interfering with her focus. She blinked and shut out the thought.

"Closer, " Natsuki said, angling for the man who was now taking questions from an ABC correspondent. Shizuru followed, pulling out a notebook.

Natsuki slipped between a heavyset reporter and a woman in a purple blouse, eyes fixed on the man. They were behind and to the right of the Iranian defense minister and the camera that captured the interview.

It took little effort to work her way to the front of the other journalists who were yielding space to ABC for the moment. Natsuki stopped ten feet from Rosfez.

This was her prey. From his right, the scent of a flowery perfume. From his left, the smell of the asphalt and pollution and cooking meat. Rosfez himself had practically doused himself in a spicy cologne laced with nutmeg.

Natsuki stepped from the circle, eyes fixed on the man's dark hair and gently working jaw. Simm's jaw was sharp and pitted, from acne, perhaps. His voice was low and gravelly. His dark, purposeful eyes cut through the crowd.

"...not rest until we have peace. How can one man stand againts so many? Now the whole world will unite and bring peace where there has been no peace for centuries."

An interesting voice. Natsuki wouldn't risk detection, despite the strong urge to pass closer to this man in his perfectly tailored suit.

Natsuki turned back and eyed Shizuru. She stared back at her, emotionless.

Natsuki started to face Rosfez again, saw that the camera was panning, and thought better of being caught in a full shot in the proximity of the target. Their appearances and identities would be changed immediately after the assassination, but her instinct warned her off.

A thin sheen of sweat covered Shizuru's face. She wasn't comfortable with Natsuki's admittedly unorthodox approach in this surveillance mission. They'd come to walk the perimeter, not enter the hotel. They hadn't expected to see the target, let alone make such a bold approach in the event that they did.

Natsuki guided Shizuru to the Fordwal's revolving entry doors.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Shizuru said.

"I wanted to know who he is."

She didn't respond.

_I want to know him so that I can know myself. I am a killer. Who and how I kill define me._

They waited in line fifteen minutes before security would allow them to enter the hotel. It seemed that only a limited number of people were allowed inside at any given time. They walked up marble steps and entered a large atrium with towering pillars. Exotic floral arrangements that stood twice the height of a man blossomed in huge urns every seven paces.

Natsuki stopped below the arches that opened to the lobby and allowed the room to soak in. Magnificent. The old walls and ceiling were inspiring.

She scanned the room, detected no threat, and walked out to the center. Being taped by the hotel security cameras was actually to her benefit. The typical assassin would never be so bold. She faced the ceiling, were she knew the cameras hid, and examined the intricate designs etched into the wood.

Here was a building with a history. Unlike her.

Natsuki turned, refreshed by a sense of destiny. She was going to find herself here, in New York. The ceiling seemed to be staring down at her like a proud father. Rotating to her right like a camera on a wire. And in the center, her, staring up, lost to the world.

_Are you my mother?_

A hand touched her elbow. "We should go."

Natsuki lowered her head. Shizuru was right. They'd come inside to see the reception hall on the tenth floor, where Simm Rosfez would die this very night.

But a single sign made that impossible. A white placard etched in black calligraphy that read "No press above Lobby Floor." Two guards stood at each elevator and beside the stairwell to enforce the restriction.

Natsuki walked toward an archway that led to specialty shops, the first of which she could see at the hall's end. "Should we go shopping?"

Shizuru walked abreast and talked quietly. "Are you feeling all right?"

"What do you mean?" Natsuki asked. There were fewer people back here. "I'm feeling what I choose to feel."

"You seem a bit erratic."

"Because I'm making erratic choices. If it's any comfort, I can assure you that every one of these guards has been trained to pick out the calm, cool behavior of a potential assassin. It's better to play the part of an awed foreign correspondent, don't you think?"

"It just feels...odd. The way you're acting."

"I don't feel odd. This building fascinates me."

"And that's not odd? When was the last time you were fascinated by anything?"

Natsuki gave her a shallow grin. "I'm fascinated by you."

Shizuru's face went red, and try as she might, she couldn't hide a grin. It was the first time Natsuki had ever seen her so embarrassed, and strangely enough it thrilled her.

They walked by a shop window displaying gold and silver jewelry, something that held no fascination for her at the moment. The next store looked as if it sold dolls and stuffed animals. Toys. More fascinating.

"We should get back to the hotel," Shizuru said.

"I agree."

A tall, dark-skinned man in a black suit stepped from the toy shop and faced them, eyes skittering along the hall. Secret Service.

A boy half Natsuki's height walked out after him, holding his purchase: a pair of compact binoculars. Polaroid XLVs- Natsuki knew of them. From where she couldn't remember, but she knew the binoculars. Perhaps she'd owned a pair herself when she was younger.

The boy turned blue eyes toward Natsuki and stopped. For a moment they exchanged stares.

"You're from Japan?" he asked in a small but confident voice.

Natsuki wasn't sure how to respond. She should acknowledge the guess, but something about this boy struck a reverberating chord deep inside her.

"Yes," Shizuru said.

"That's good. I hope you support our president's position on Israel."

Had she seen this boy before? No, she didn't think so. As far as she knew, she hadn't really known any boys before. At least none she could remember.

The sound of feet clacking down the hall reached her. _Seven, maybe eight pair_, she thought absently.

The Secret Service agent stepped around the boy, shielding him from Natsuki and Shizuru. "Your father's coming, Jamie."

_Jamie._

They came around the corner, five agents and a lean, blond-headed man whom Natsuki immediately recognized as the president of the United States, Randy Stenton.

The boy was his son. Jamie.

The boy's guard put a hand on his shoulder and eased him forward, toward his father, who beamed at the sight of his son.

"What did you get?" the president asked, stopping twenty yards away.

Jamie hurried to his father and held up the binoculars.

Secret Service agents circled father and son like hens gathering chicks. Natsuki and Shizuru had been scanned by every one of them, including the two responsible for the president's back.

Randy Stenton took the binoculars and held them up. "Fantastic!" He peered through them, past Natsuki, down the hall. "Perfect choice," the president said.

Then he put his arm around his son's shoulders and walked back the way he'd come. The entourage disappeared around the corner, trailed by Jamie's dark-skinned agent, who turned and cast one last look at them before following.

Natsuki stared after them, mesmerized by the interaction between father and son. What was it about them that confused her?

Natsuki smiled at the guard, dipped her head, and turned around. "We should go," she said.

"Yes. We should."

* * *

so the characters finally meet...

review!


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Randy Stenton glanced at Chris Abraham, who was watching him like a hawk. For the first time the president was beginning to understand his mentor's distress. Accepting Samuel's vision might require any ordinary person to jump through mind-blowing mental hoops, but there was a resounding ring of authenticity to everything Chris had just said. 

One of his aides handed him a phone. "Frank Carter is on the line for you, Mr. President."

Randy took the cell phone. "Thank you." He walked to the window overlooking Manhattan and spoke softly to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

"Thank you for stepping out of your meeting, Frank."

"Of course, sir."

"I have a very simple question, Frank, and I want a simple answer. Is there an agency plan to deal with Simm Rosfez? And when I say plan, I mean of any sort, technically sanctioned or not."

_That question caught him off guard_, Randy thought. Carter hesitated, then spoke plainly. "Not to my knowledge, no. We discussed this- "

"I know what we discussed. Now I'm being sure. I assume the bulletin that went out an hour ago was brought to your attention?"

"Yes."

"Does the subject match anything you have?"

"We're still running the comparison againts our database, but nothing on the list of priors matches. If this guy's an assassin, he's never been spotted."

"Regardless, we have reason to believe there may be a threat to the Iranian defense minister's life. Do you know how badly this could go if he were killed on American soil during this summit?"

"I couldn't agree more. Wrong place, wrong time."

"There is no right place or right time. I thought I made that clear."

"A figure of speech. The security surrounding the minister's schedule would be difficult to penetrate."

"Unless there was an inside operation," Randy said. "But you're telling me that there isn't."

"That's correct. None whatsoever."

"If anything happens to Simm Rosfez while he's in our country, you'll answer, Frank. I assume you understand that."

"I don't think we have a problem, sir."

"Please make sure of it."

He hung up and faced Chris. "I don't know what else we can do at this point."

"Nothing. You have to prevent her from killing Rosfez, but you can't pick her up. Not yet."

"So you've said." Chris' explanation had taken a full fifteen minutes, laying out details that explained far more than Samuel's vision. What Chris revealed was tantamount to conspiracy. Their discussion still made his head hurt.

It was no wonder Chris Abraham had been wringing his hands for the last month.

"Are you absolutely sure the person you saw was her?"

"Yes," Chris said. "I could never mistake that face, trust me."

The president took a deep breath and set the cell phone on the lamp stand. "I have to be honest, Chris. I'm having a hard time buying into all of this. It's a stretch."

"It's only a stretch for a mind that hasn't been where mine's been."

"Well, if you're right about this, you've taken immeasurable risks and overstepped your place. I'm not sure how to feel about that."

"Let's pray I made the right decision, then," Chris said. "I'm sure you understand why I've said nothing about this before now."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Only time will tell. You can decide then whether to burn me at the stake or build a statue of me."

* * *

I bet you all thought i was going to put the assassination scene on this chapter huh? 

well sorry to dissapoint you but i needed to build up the story and characters a bit more before everything went crazy and the big chase began.

**Natsuki Silverwolf: **I only know things about the guns i like, so i guess i know a bit about them.

**Hoppy-chan: **thanks for reviewing even though you're sick. I don't know if you're still sick but if you are, you could make it go away faster if you sweat. I know it sounds kind of stupid and yucky, but thats what i do when i get sick I go running or i work out and i recover much faster than when i take pills or some kind of medicine.

I think thats all i wanted to say.

So, for the other reviewers, don't feel neglected if i don't reply back or something. Its just, like many lurkers, I don't know what to say.

Know, what i came here to say- Iwon'tbeabletoupdatethestoryforalongtimeforreasonsthatareyetunknownsopleasedon'thurtmebutipromisethenextchapterwillbetheassassination. -runs away quickly-


	13. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Manhattan offered a dozen possible sites from which Natsuki could kill Simm Rosfez while he dined on the Fordwal-Aristoria's tenth floor, but after only short consideration, she'd agreed that shooting from a hotel room would best facilitate the objective. There were numerous advantages to the protection offered by a room, chief among them silence and isolation. The room would absorb much of the sound, critical because a sound supressor would affect the bullet's path and therefore would not be used. 

There were as many disadvantages, perhaps the greatest being that most hotel rooms weren't conveniently positioned to offer a shot into the Fordwal. As far as Natsuki could see, there were only seven possible rooms, four of which were aligned vertically in the hotel in which she now prepared herself.

Seven hotel rooms, seven different shots, seven escape routes. But of these seven, only one was available- the one she now occupied. Regardless, it was an excellent choice. An obvious choice. Obvious because it was far _too_ obvious to be taken seriously by even welltrained security personnel.

Natsuki sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at the round oak table next to the window. Her rifle rested on its bipod, pointed at the pulled curtain less than a foot beyond the muzzle. She would wait until the three minute mark to pull the curtain and prepare the window for the shot.

She kept her eyes on the rifle and her mind in her tunnel.

Strange and wonderful and frightening emotions swam in the blackness beyond the pinprick of light that was her mission, but she held them all at bay easily enough. She didn't have to control fear, because there was none. She hadn't expected any. Instead, there was excitement, an emotion that could easily affect her pulse and by extension her accuracy.

And there was some empathy, an emotion she'd expected even less than fear. She was about to send a bullet toward a man who had done nothing to harm her. Shizuru had told her what danger this man was to the world, but none of her words mattered. Natsuki was simply a killer who would kill whomever Shizuru told her to kill. She needed no other motivation to please Shizuru.

Yet now, just a few minutes from doing precisely that, she was aware of this strange empathy lingering beyond her tunnel. She dismissed it and kept her mind on the light ahead.

Natsuki stared at the barrel of her rifle, allowing peripheral elements to stream into her vision without distraction. A four-inch LED monitor on the table captured the high-bandwidth video images transmitted from a small camera she'd positioned under the room's front door, peering into the hall. In the event her location was compromised, she would see any approach in enough time to make a quick exit into the adjoining room.

The room was warm. She'd turned off the air conditioner when she first entered in order to equalize the pressure between this room and the air outside. A part of her wished she could turn the heat up to better simulate her pit when it was hot.

She missed her pit.

But she'd left the safe world of that pit to fulfill her pupose. As soon as she'd reached the light at the end of this tunnel, she would be allowed to return to the base.

The light. That circle of white now beckoned her. Excitement tried to enter her tunnel again, but she deflected it without conscious thought and stared at the light.

She would kill the Iranian defense minister while the man ate his dinner on the tenth floor of the Fordwal, and she would do it with a bullet that came from the tenth floor of the Crowne Plaza on Broadway, roughly twelve hundred yards away. It would be a two-shot kill.

Her first bullet would leave the hotel room Shizuru had reserved for her, cross over one of the busiest streets in Manhattan, and travel down Forty-ninth Street for five blocks before crashing into a thick window. The bullet's soft, hollow point would allow the projectile to spread at first impact and blow the window inward.

Her second bullet would follow on the heels of the first, free to fly unobstructed through the broken window, through an open doorway, and into a second room, where Simm Rosfez would be seated.

The second shot had to be fired withing two seconds of the first so that it would reach the target before the sound created by the exploding window elicited any reaction.

The strings that Ishigami had pulled to give Natsuki a line of sight into the kill zone could have been pulled only by very influential people. Being sure that Rosfez was seated at one of three tables facing the doors, for example. Making sure the doors were open. The drapes pulled. But none of that concerned Natsuki.

Her task was to place the bullet in the target's chest at 9:45 p.m.

Shizuru's soft voice spoke through Natsuki's radio head set. "Four minutes." The frequency was scrambled on both ends, allowing them untraceable communication.

"Four minutes," Natsuki repeated.

She didn't need a spotter at this range, so Shizuru coordinated the mission from the Dragon in Chinatown. Shizuru's contact inside the Fordwal had two tasks. The first was to raise the blinds on the window. The second was to make sure the double doors that led into the dining room were opened at 9:45 p.m., a far more difficult task in this security-rich enviroment than in any other. The server was being paid $100,000 in U.S. currency, a good payday, Shizuru said.

A thousand men could hit a target at twelve hundred yards. But very few could shoot a bullet into a window, chamber a second catridge even as the glass fell, acquire a target seated next to twenty other dignitaries through a narrow doorway, and place a bullet in the target's chest in the space of two seconds.

This was the light at the end of Natsuki's tunnel.

"Three minutes."

Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds by the clock on the table.

"Three minutes," Natsuki repeated.

Natsuki waited a beat. She unfolded her legs and stood. The only emotion that now threatened her was excitement, and she blocked it out forcefully.

She stepped up to the window, pulled the heavy curtains a foot to each side. A sea of lights filled her view. Times Square was two blocks south, Central Park a half a mile north. a hundred feet below her, heavy traffic ran along Broadway, refusing to sleep just as the brochure Natsuki had studied claimed. Two minutes and thirty-five seconds.

She lifted a black cutting tool from the table, pressed five suction cups againts the glass, and ran the glass cutter's diamond bit in a two-inch circle. Three full turns and a gentle tug. The glass popped softly.

She set the glass cutout on the table and lowered the bit so that it rested on the window's outer pane.

A soft gust of air blew through the two-inch opening as she pulled the second circle of glass free. No wind in Manhattan, as forecasted. Wind had been Natsuki's greatest concern during the planning, but no more.

One minute and thirty-two seconds.

She eased into the chair, took the rifle gently in her hands, leaned over the table, and aligned the barrel with the hole. The weapon's smooth, cool barrel and familiar trigger brought her comfort, and she accepted it.

She peered through the light-gathering scope, quickly found the corner window that she would punch through in just over one minute, and let the air seep from her lungs.

The hot gases blown forward by the .308 cartridge would create both sound and light. The first would be absorbed in part by the room, baffled by the glass, and then muffled by the heavy traffic below. The fire would be dimmed by the flash supressor affixed to the end of her barrel. Unless someone was peering directly at this window, the shots would likely go unnoticed.

She would escape easily enough either way.

"One minute."

"One minute," she repeated.

A stray thought penetrated her consciousness. _Is this just another test?_

And then another thought. _It doesn't matter._

Natsuki let her mind go where it now begged to go, into the scope. Into the tunnel. Through the dark passage toward that light. She walked her bullet's trajectory as she had a thousand times before.

"Thisrty seconds." Shizuru's voice sounded distant.

As agreed, Natsuki did not reply now, but she wanted to. She wanted to say, "I'm in, Shizuru. I'm going to kill Simm Rosfez for you."

Natsuki went deeper. Her breathing slowed. Heart slogged through a gentle beat. Absolute peace. If called upon to do so, she thought she might be able to walk the bullet into a quarter at two thousand yards.

Yes, she could do that, couldn't she?

"Abort."

The shade was up, but the window was still dark. At any moment the doors would swing open and reveal the dining...

"Natsuki, do you hear me? Abort the current shot. There's been a change. There's a new target."

Only now did Shizuru's first word penetrate Natsuki's dark place. _Abort._

No. No, She couldn't have heard it correctly.

_I'm inside, Shizuru. I will kill Simm Rosfez for you. Please let me do this one thing for you. For us._

"Natsuki, acknowledge! You can't kill Simm Rosfez. Do you hear me?"

The urgency in Shizuru's voice made Natsuki's vision swim for a brief moment.

"Acknowledged," Natsuki said.

"There is a new target. Acknowledge."

Natsuki could hear her breathing now, not a good thing. "Acknowledged."

"Your new target is the president of the United States, Randy Stenton. Acknowledge."

Light suddenly filled the open window five blocks away. She could see through the window, through the open doorway into the dining room now. Several dozen men and women, most in dark suits, seated at round tables.

Simm Rosfez sat on the right, precisely where he'd been told to sit. But this wasn't the man Natsuki would kill. There was another. She hadn't known the president would be in the room. Where was this new target of hers?

"Acknowledge, Natsuki."

"Where is he?" Natsuki asked.

"Third from the right at the long head table."

Natsuki eased her aim up and over. Third from the right. The president's torso filled the scope. Dark suit- too far for any other details. This is where she would send her bullet.

"Do you have him?"

"Yes."

Natsuki raised the crosshairs above the man's head, allowing for the drop of the bullet.

"Take the shot," Shizuru said.

The president leaned to Natsuki's right. He was listening to the boy who sat on his left. This was his son, the one who'd purchased binoculars from the toy shop on the main floor.

_Do I know this boy?_

Jamie. _Do I know Jamie?_

Jamie looked as if he was laughing with his father.

The image froze in Natsuki's mind. She stared at father and son, mesmerized by the strange and wonderful display of affection.

"Take the shot, Natsuki."

Her tunnel wavered, and she knew she couldn't take the shot without reacquiring perfect peace. The first shot would be easy; it was the second that concerned her. Under no circumstances could she jeopardize the mission by compromising the second shot. Any failed attempt would result in the target's immediate evacuation.

Natsuki dismissed the unique tension that had come from seeing father and son together. Her body obeyed her.

She would take the shot now.

Why had they changed targets? Had they changed their minds? No. They'd known all along that the president was the target.

Then why hadn't they told her earlier?

_Because they are afraid I won't kill the president of the United States._ It was the only answer that made any sense.

"What's going on, Natsuki? Do you have a shot?"

Fear spread through Natsuki's body. Something about the father and son shut her muscles down. An instinctive impulse that screamed out of her dark past.

She would take the shot now. She had a clear shot. Less than an ounce of pressure and the president would be dead.

But this wasn't just the president of the United States. This was the boy's father. How could she possibly kill Jamie's father?

"Listen to me, Natsuki." Shizuru's voice came gently, calming her confusion. "Whatever's going through your mind right now, let it go and send your bullets. For me. For us. They won't allow us to live if you fail."

Shizuru was right. She had to shoot.

"My heart is pounding, Shizuru," Natsuki said. The realization that her tunnel was breaking down only made the matter worse. "I don't know if I have the shot."

Shizuru didn't respond.

"Shizuru?"

Silence in her headset.

Now the fear that she'd hurt Shizuru joined her confusion and sent a visible tremble through her fingers.

_I'm breaking down!_

For the first time in many months, Natsuki began to panic.

"Shizuru!"

"Shh.Shh..." Shizuru's voice fell over her, milky soft.

"What's happening to me, Shizuru?"

"It's okay, Natsuki."

But it wasn't okay, Natsuki knew that. The doors had been open for more than a minute already- at any moment the lapse in security would be identified and the oppurtunity for her shot would be closed.

_Who is your father, Natsuki? You can't shoot this father._

A figure stepped into the doorway, peered out, then crossed to the window and pulled the shade closed.

Natsuki closed her eyes.

"They've pulled the shade," Natsuki said.

There was no response.

A terrible remorse swallowed her. She held her rifle tightly, feeling the familiar surfaces on her cheek and shoulder and in her hands. This gave her some comfort. She could have taken the shot. She could have killed the president for Shizuru.

_You can't shoot this father_.

"Come home, Natsuki."

Her voice was like an angel's to Natsuki, calling her from the valley of death.

"Repair the glass, scrub the room, and come home. I'm here for you."

* * *

HAHA! I'm back! 

I was going to write the notes at the beginning but i decided not to and just let you all read the story since it has been a while. You know, i don't like to keep the fans waiting.-laughs nerveously-

So finally the oh so awaited assassination scene has happened, and what happens...NO ONE FREAKING DIES! not yet, at least.

But think of it this way: Now the writer can write another assassination scene, Hooray!

Enough babbling. I've been seating in this chair for too long and my butt is getting numb. So see you next chapter and keep the reviews coming.


	14. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

The New York Dragon was located a block west of the East River, where the small boat that would depart Manhattan Island waited in hiding. The authorities would undoubtedly shut down both bridges and tunnels as soon as they learned of any assassination attempt, thereby trapping all suspects on the island.

A withdrawal under cover of darkness was preferable, but the point was now moot. There was no need for a withdrawal.

Shizuru watched Natsuki pace over the worn brown carpet. Natsuki had returned at eleven, one hour earlier, after gluing the circles of glass back into the window, wiping down all surfaces, an packing her tools into the golf bag.

Shizuru felt ambivalent about Natsuki's failure. A part of Shizuru ached with her. Natsuki was struggling to control her emotions, which threw her into a terrible funk. Confusion raced through Natsuki's eyes. Shizuru's own feelings for her had grown far deeper than she had expected over the last month. Not only could she feel Natsuki's pain; she found herself wanting to lighten it.

But she now suspected that she was _supposed_ to feel this way. Her own feelings were part of the design. Surely they knew she would come to respect, perhaps even love Natsuki.

"Do you mind if I tell you what I think happened?" Shizuru asked.

Natsuki slid into the metal chair at the table and formed a teepee over the bridge of her nose, eyes lost on the wall.

"I think you've progressed exactly how Youko sensei expected you would. She told me that you'd fail the first attempt. She told me that you were meant to."

Natsuki's eyes darted toward her. " That makes no sense."

"Neither did any of your training at first. But look at you now."

"Why was the target switched? They want me to kill the president- "

"Does that matter to you? Or does it matter more that you trust me? You've always believed me, and nothing's changed now."

"I failed now."

Shizuru took a deep breath and told her what she'd been waiting to say. "You failed by design, to strengthen your resolve."

Natsuki didn't look her way.

Shizuru walked over to the table and sat down across from her. "Listen to me, Natsuki. Look into my eyes."

Her round emerald eyes turned to Shizuru.

"I'm about to tell you something that might confuse you, but I want you to resist that confusion. For my sake. It's very important that you trust me now, like you've never trusted me before."

"I've always trusted you."

"I know you have. But you have to dig even deeper. Can you do that?"

"I love you," Natsuki said.

"I know you do. And I love you. We trust each other, even when the worst happens."

Shizuru reached across the table's Formica top and offered Natsuki her hand. She took it.

"Do you remember your last treatment in the hospital?"

Natsuki thought for a moment. "No."

"No. You always put them behind you, don't you? But you were treated with drugs and shock therapy on the hospital bed the day before we left. During that treatment, you were led to believe that you could never take the life of Randy Stenton because he's the father of Jamie, a son. You, too, want-need- to have a father. That's why you hesitated. Only because Youko sensei wanted you to hesitate."

"Why?"

"Because this is your first real mission for the X Group. You may not think you can differentiate between real missions and the training, but your subconscious mind can. It's important that you understand that even in the field, you will feel only what Youko sensei wants you to feel."

"She wanted me to feel confusion."

"Yes."

"But I still failed."

"Yes, you did. But the next time you feel any hesitation or confusion, you'll remember that those feelings can't be trusted. You didn't really have any feelings for the son or the father, did you? The feelings were planted by Youko sensei."

A light grew in Natsuki's eyes.

"The next time you feel anything in the field, you'll know. Even the feelings that break through aren't to be trusted. You'll know that they are simply tests from Youko sensei and you'll have the strenght to set them aside."

"I'm not sure I understand. I don't want or need a father?"

"No. Why would you? You're twenty-five years old."

Natsuki grunted, then frowned at her own failure to recognize this.

"Youko sensei's methods are strange, but only because they are so advanced. I think you hold a special place in her heart. For all practical purposes, _she's_ your mother. You can trust her with your life."

Natsuki grunted again. Shook her head and grinned sheepishly. "So it was all planned. I haven't failed, then."

Shizuru stood and walked behind Natsuki. She placed her hands on her neck and massaged lightly. "Not really, no. You're as strong as ever. Even stronger."

She bent over and spoke gently behind Natsuki's right ear. "How do you feel?"

"Foolish."

"Can you set this feeling aside?"

"Yes."

"Then do it. How can the woman I love feel foolish if she knows that I love her?"

Natsuki turned her head and looked into Shizuru's eyes.

"If you're foolish, is your love for me also foolish?" Shizuru asked.

"No."

"Then you're not a fool."

"No."

Shizuru leaned around Natsuki and kissed her on the lips. "I didn't think so, " she breathed. Natsuki's breathing thickened.

_The idea that I can generate this response from Natsuki is without question the most satisfying part of loving her_, Shizuru thought. And she did love her.

She was meant to.

Shizuru straightened, unable to hide the coy smile on her face. She returned to her chair and sat slowly. "The president is scheduled to speak from the same stage that Simm Rosfez will use tomorrow. One hour earlier."

"Then I should get into position," Natsuki said, standing. She walked to the window, pulled back the curtain, evidently saw nothing of interest, and turned to face Shizuru.

"If you fail tomorrow, they will kill us both," Shizuru said. "You know that right?"

"Why would I fail?"

"You won't. The only reason they haven't triggered the implant yet is because they expected you to fail. If you want proof that all of this is by design, there's your proof. You're still alive."

Natsuki nodded. "Then I'll kill the president of the United States tomorrow as planned."

"And then we can go home."

Natsuki pulled back the curtain again. "I like it here," she said. "The city is a good place to hide."

"So is the desert," Shizuru said. "Nevada isn't so far from here. When all this is over, maybe we can go to the desert where no one will bother us."

"When what is over?"

"A figure of speech. We both know this will end only if we fail."

"I won't let that happen," Natsuki said. "I will never let them hurt you."

* * *

The next chappy will be the assassination so don't miss it! 


	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

The garbage trucks picked up trash along Avenue of the Americas every two days. Today was not one of those days.

Night still darkened Manhattan when Natsuki pushed the steel manhole cover off its seating. Unlike the first hit from the hotel, this one required far more direct coordination between Shizuru and herself.

Natsuki slid the heavy steel lid aside. She lit the portable acetylene torch, adjusted the flame until it was a bright blue, and began her cut into the bottom of the large garbage bin Shizuru had rolled over the hole.

The sound of wheels peeling along the street on her left muted the soft crackle of cutting steel. Shizuru had pulled the bin into the alley and taped a rubber skirt around the bottom before pushing it into place. She was now playing the role of a janitor from the adjacent towers on the Thirty-eight Street, loading the bin with spent rags and rearranging the garbage already inside to make Natsuki's entry possible.

It took Natsuki less than a minute to cut the two-foot hole and remove the hot steel plate from the bottom of the bin.

It took her a full three minutes to push her equipment through the hole and climb in after it, only because even with Shizuru's efforts, she was forced to make room by shoving the bags around.

Once in the bin, she reached down to the sidewalk, slid the cover back into place, and rapped on the side of the bin.

Within seconds, the metal box was rolling. Twenty feet before it came to rest at the corner of the alley as planned, she heard the rubber of the skirt pull free. For several minutes Natsuki waited in the darkness.

The half-filled container smelled like spoiled milk, but Natsuki had expected worse. She placed her feet againts the wall she expected to work through and crammed the garbage to her rear.

Shizuru's voice spoke quietly into her headset. "You copy?"

"Copy."

"You're clear."

Natsuki lit the torch and cut a seven-inch hole from the sidewall, leaving a half-inch section connected at the top. Using a screwdriver, she pried the lid that she'd cut in and up. The alley gaped in darkness, empty.

Satisfied, she pushed the metal plate back down into place.

"Ready," Natsuki said.

"Copy."

Thirty seconds later she heard a scraping sound around the hole she'd cut. Shizuru was filling the crack with putty and spraying it green.

"All clear," Shizuru finally said. "You're good?"

"Good."

"Still clear."

Shizuru would watch the box from a dozen surveillence vantages, some of which they'd already selected, others she would find as the day passed.

Natsuki pushed the torch under the garbage behind her and extracted her rifle from the golf bag. She rested the gun on the metal floor, careful not to jar the scope. There was only one way to position herself for the shot- on her belly with her legs bent up and her rifle inside her elbow, resting on its bipod. She manuvered slowly, shoving and rearranging bags as she moved. The hole she'd cut in the floor of the bin clipped her left forearm- unavoidable. She would have to reposition herself just before shooting. Once in place, she pulled the bags of rags over her head, shaping a clearing around the scope as she did so.

She snugged the weapon to her shoulder and peered into blackness. Shizuru would move the bin into position and open the hole Natsuki had cut for her shot thirty seconds before the kill.

Once again, the level of information that the X Group had secured to facilitate this opportunity was beyond Natsuki's ability to comprehend. Rosfez would be standing on the stage they'd erected just inside Central Park South, on Avenue of the americas. She knew now that it would be the president of the United States, not Simm Rosfez, but nothing else about the kill had changed.

The street would be closed to both pedestrian through-traffic and cars at Thirty-eight Street three hours prior to the press conference. The unprecedented security measures would require an enormous effort on the part of the NYPD. But any security envelope could be penetrated by the right person.

In this case, Natsuki was that person.

Their effort might remove most conceivable threats to those who took the stage, but it would also clear a corrider down Avenue of the Americas for an improbable shot. Perhaps impossible .

To all but her.

"I'm in position," she said.

"It's 4:36 a.m.," Shizuru said. "You have just over ten hours before the press conference. I'll check in every hour unless we have a problem."

Natsuki wouls have preferred to set up closer to the target, but there were no garbage bins suitably located for both the shot and the escape. Her shot would be just under two thousand yards. As long as the weather cooperated and she was able to acquire the target, she would have a good shot.

"You're okay?"

"I'm fine."

It was now time to wait.

Outside, cars roared by and pedestrians rode a wave of indistinct voices, but in the pitch-black container, Natsuki lay facedown on a cushion of darkness, shut off from everything except the hourly sound of Shizuru's gentle voice.

They didn't talk. Shizuru called her on the hour and asked for acknowledgment, which Natsuki offered and then retreated into her darkness. She was in her pit, right here on Avenue of the Americas. Thruth be told, her was more comfortable in this place than she'd been anywhere since leaving the compound. _In the future, I'll shoot from the darkness whenever I have the opportunity_, she thought. Maybe always.

The pressure on her elbows and hip bones, the cramping of her muscles, and the stuffy heat reassured her that very few could withstand such discomfort. She alone could satisfy Shizuru with success, because to Natsuki the pain wasn't pain at all - she'd shut it down. How many people could do that?

Even though she couldn't yet see the target, she walked an imaginary path from the garbage bin to Randy Stenton. Natsuki had selected a 150-gram full-metal jacket for the task, preferring the increased accuracy it offered over a bullet that would flatten upon impact, even though the latter would increase the likelihood of a kill should the bullet miss the chest.

Natsuki had no intention of missing the target's chest.

The father was about to die.

Could she kill Jamie's father? Of course she could.

The sound of traffic ceased at noon, when they closed the street fifty yards behind her.

"One o' clock," Shizuru said. "We're on schedule."

"One o' clock."

Time drifted by. Twice someone opened the bin, threw some garbage in, then let the lid clang noisily back in place, oblivious to Natsuki's body hiding below the bags.

At times like this, deep in stasis, Natsuki felt as though she might actually be hallucinating. The darkness seemed to touch her as if it were matter.

Youko had once told her that she drew all of her powers from her own mind, that a person who finds silence and solitude boring is a person who is himself boring, empty of anything worth consideration. "These empty shells require outside stimulation to keep them from blowing away in a gentle breeze," Youko had said.

"Two," Shizuru said.

Natsuki grunted.

In one hour she would send the bullet into the father's chest.

Less than a week ago she'd been strapped into an electric chair and survived an onslaught of electricity. How? By going very deep and affecting the field that connected her to the objects around her. It was nothing more than mind over matter. Not so different from embracing the dark or slowing her heart rate.

With belief as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains - a famous teacher had said that. But what if Youko was wrong about the source of her power? What if she'd tapped into something far greater than the dark musing of quantum theory?

Whatever it was, it had worked. Could work. Would work. More important, her success pleased both Youko and Ishigami. And even more than either of this, it pleased Shizuru.

Natsuki wasn't even aware of the last hour. It was simply there one minute and gone the next.

"Five minutes."

Natsuki methodically reached up and flipped a small switch on the side of her scope. Battery-powered light filled the glass. Without it, her vision would be distorted by the flood of light when Shizuru opened the metal flap. She let her pupils adjust.

"We have a go. The target has just taken the stage. I'm coming in."

No need to answer.

The bin swayed once and then began to clatter along the rough concrete. Natsuki was like a battleship being maneuvered to bring its guns to bear.

Shizuru's boot kicked the metal circle, forcing it inward a few inches. She reached forward and bent it all the way up. Now Natsuki had a clear view of the street and, thanks to the blockade behind her, the distant park.

"Clear?"

"Clear," Natsuki said.

Avenue of the Americas fell and rose between this point and the park, but on balance it dropped about ten feet on its way to the stage. She would have to compensate accordingly.

Natsuki peered through the scope, down the street, all the way to the park, a mile and a half away. The bullet would fly a second and a half and drop nearly eight feet before striking the target.

And now Natsuki could see that target.

The last time she'd seen this view was two days earlier, when she dropped to one knee while picking up a dropped pen to study this line. Then, she'd had to visualize the street vacant of cars and pedestrians. Now a dozen obstacles rose between her and the president - street lamps, light posts, a few tree branches at the end - but the target's torso was in plain view. Her bullet would pass under a branch that cut the target off at the neck and enter his chest for a kill. There were no obstacles between her barrel and the father. Natsuki studied the man's chest.

"It's your call, Natsuki. Take your shot."

Again, Natsuki felt no need to respond.

Her pulse slowed. Her breathing stalled. She was home.

A man in a blue suit stood to the target's left. Secret Service. An older man in a tweed blazer sat behind the president.

_I know this man._

Natsuki stared, transfixed by the older man. Aside from the man's beard and general features, she couldn't make out details, but she was suddenly and forcefully certain that she knew this man. It was the way he sat with arms folded. The way his head sat on his shoulders. The way he crossed his legs.

Natsuki blinked, stunned. Her heart thumped, ruining her aim, forcing her to reacquire the stillness the bullet would need as it sped down the barrel.

But she knew this man! As a father. The man was his father?

_You can't kill the father_.

Natsuki stilled her body. Raised the barrel ever so slightly. Found the light.

But there was more than light in her mind. There was a voice, and it was screaming bloody murder, raging through her concentration.

_You cannot kill the father!_

Natsuki began to panic.

Shizuru watched the president through powerful binoculars from her perch half a block behind the garbage bin in which Natsuki lay, wondering why Natsuki hadn't taken the shot.

She'd wheeled the green steel box onto the sidewalk and left it directly above the manhole as planned. Natsuki would make the shot, drop into the service tunnel, discard the weapon, and run one block south, where she would exit through a manhole in an ally and then meet her at the Dragon.

As they'd suspected, the NYPD was too busy rerouting traffic and dealing with mobs of pedestrians behind the barricades to care about a single garbage bin half a block up the street. A handful of workers from a nearby office buildings still loitered on Avenue of the Americas, occasionally passing near the bin. Although through-traffic had been cut off, these people were allowed. The streets of New York were accustomed to change. The presence of a garbage bin ten feet from its normal resting place attracted no attention.

So far, so good.

According to the media, the summit had accomplished little or nothing - neither side budged. The president was already into his speech, presumably pitching his final position to the media.

_Take the shot, Natsuki. Now, take the shot!_

Most of the expanding gases responsible for the noise of Natsuki's shot would be baffled by the bin's metal wall, but the few dozen pedestrians within a hundred yards would hear the sound clearly enough. Still, it would take them many seconds to isolate the sound's source and react. By then, Natsuki would be gone.

This was the plan.

But she wasn't sure that Natsuki was following the plan.

The president had been talking for several minutes now, and still no shot. She knew Natsuki had a clear line for the simple reason that she hadn't said otherwise.

"We are clear." Shizuru spoke deliberately but very softly. "It's time, my dear."

No shot.

It was this business about her father. Shizuru cursed under her breath.

_Please, Natsuki, please shoot._

What if this was a profound weakness in Youko's training? _What if Natsuki simply cannot bring herself to fire upon a father figure because she, like me, really does need-_

A muffled explosion stopped her thought short - the sound of a car backfiring. But today it wasn't a car.

Natsuki had fired!

Her hands trembled, momentarily distorting the image on the platform a mile and a half away. The bullet would travel for two seconds before-

Randy Stenton grabbed his chest. Shizuru sat hard, then dropped back.

For a brief second there was no movement. Then the stage blurred into a picture of confusion as Secret Service swarmed the prone body.

Shizuru jerked the binoculars from her eyes. Two dozen people were scattered down the street. Some had stopped what they were doing and were looking around for the source of the sound. Others had probably concluded that a taxi had backfired. None were paying any special attention to the green garbage bin. By now Natsuki would have already shoved the green metal flap back into place.

Shizuru lowered her eyes to the gap between the bin and the sidewalk just in time to see Natsuki drop through. Then she was gone.

Natsuki Kuga had just killed the president of the United States.

* * *

Yet again, I have made my readers wait for another update.

I no deserve kitten.

I guess i should apologize...but then again as long as i updated its ok.

right?


	16. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

Natsuki pushed her rifle through the manhole, heard it splash below.

To abuse a weapon so intentionally struck her as profane, but this was the plan. Her plan.

She swung her feet into the hole, dropped down to the fifth rung, and pulled the manhole cover back into place. Dim light filtered through a thin gap around the heavy metal plate. She descended the ladder quickly.

Who had she shot? What had she done? _Father_- the word refused to stop pounding through her skull.

_Father, father, father. Father!_

A foot of dirty water ran down the passage, soaking her canvas boots. She felt for the rifle, found it, and ran south along the walkway on the east side of the tunnel.

The bullet had followed a perfect trajectory, she knew that. What she didn't know was whether she'd succeeded. Or who the old man was. Her need to know smothered her judgment.

She had to escape, and she would. But she also had to know what had happened. Why she'd believed with such certainty that she was peering through the scope at her father!

She threw the rifle into a deep aclove two hundred yards south as planned and ran on. They would find the rifle without a serial number and without prints.

Heart pounding like a sledge, Natsuki reached her exit ladder and climbed from a manhole in the alley two blocks south of the barricades. Her radio should work now.

"Are you there?"

Shizuru was breathing hard when she responded. "I'm here. You did well, Natsuki."

She turned up the alley and ran eastward.

"I'll meet you as planned," she said.

"Hurry."

Natsuki ripped the headset from her ears and threw the device into a garbage can at Thirty-seventh Street and Fifth Avenue. They'd blockaded Fifth as well, but the traffic would be flowing freely on Third. Bellevue Hospital was located on First. Although South New Yok Hospital was technically closer to Central Park, they would take the president down Avenue of the Americas to Bellevue, she'd been told.

She wasn't sure why she hadn't told Shizuru of her impulsive change in plan, but the five-block side trip would hold her up for only ten minutes and wouldn't compromise their exit, which wasn't planned until nightfall anyway.

She had to go to Bellevue Hospital because she had to know.

A host of sirens wailed through the streets. If the bullet hadn't killed the president outright, toxic shock soon would. They would waste no time speeding to the trauma unit.

But Natsuki was much closer to Bellevue than they were.

She sprinted down Thirty-seventh, ignoring the casual gazes of pedestrians, clearly clueless about the events behind her. The city exploded back to life at Third Avenue, but no one in this part of town had heard the news that the president had just been shot twenty-two blocks north. They still sold their magazines and walked briskly to their meetings and hailed their cabs.

Natsuki ignored the red lights and tore across the street, ignoring a long horn blast from a motorist. The chorus of sirens reached her above the street noise. The ambulance and its police escort were behind her on Avenue of the Americas, screaming toward her.

_What are you doing, Natsuki? You think you're going to find your father? Every step is a step closer to death._

Left on First Avenue. She could see that they'd already closed the Midtown Tunnel in an attempt to cut off escape routes. Confusion was backing up. News was spreading.

Natsuki reached Bellevue Hospital on First and Thirty-fourth ahead of the piercing sirens. She stepped into an alley opposite the emergency ramp as the first police swept around the corner, sped past the alley, and squealed to a stop one block north. Another car joined the first. Two others peeled south to cut off any approach from Twenty-third Street.

The ambulance slowed to take the corner, then accelerated toward the emergency ramp, directly across from Natsuki.

She eased back into the shadows, panting from her run. But she couldn't stay here; there was no direct view of the ramp.

She glanced behind, saw that the alley was clear all the way to Second Avenue, shoved her hands into her pockets, and headed directly for the ramp, head down.

_Why are you risking exposure, Natsuki?_

_I'm not. I'm simply a curious bystander, oblivious to the contents of that ambulance._

_You'll be seen._

_I've already been seen at a dozen events. My face is undoubtedly on film. Faces can be changed._

_You haven't mapped this escape route. If they grow suspicious, you'll be running blind. _

_I do well running blind._

_Do you think the old man is your father?_

She couldn't answer the question.

Then Natsuki was behind a waist-high retaining wall, staring down a slight incline at the red ambulance. The doors flew open. A paramedic spilled out and was quickly joined by six medical staff who'd been waiting.

The gurney slid out. The man she'd come face-to-face with yesterday in the Fordwal lay on his back with a green oxygen mask over his face. A silver pole with a bag of fluid was affixed to the gurney.

But it was the blood that held Natsuki's attention. The sheets draped over his chest were red with blood. This had been her bullet's doing.

The old man in tweed stepped from the back of the ambulance, and Natsuki's heart skipped a beat. _Father._ Surely this couldn't be her father! The man hurried beside the gurney as they wheeled it to the open doors. He seemed to be praying.

The distant features that had transfixed her mind as she sttled for the shot now confronted her in full color at less than fifty paces.

She did know this man!

She didn't know who he was, or how she knew him, or even how well she knew him, but she did know him.

As a father.

Natsuki stared, wide-eyed. Her father? Or her spiritual father?

_They call me Natsuki._

A strange calm had stilled Chris Abraham's heart the moment Randy dropped to the stage floor. He knew then that one of two things had happened.

Which meant that he'd been right all along.

Or dreadfully wrong.

He was second to reach the president, just behind an agent who ran between Randy and the audience to intercept a second shot.

But one look at the president, and there was no doubt that a second shot would not be needed. Randy Stenton lay on his back, eyes closed, red blood spreading from a small tear in his white shirt.

Chris' inexplicable peace quickly changed to an urgency. Perhaps some panic. The president of the United States had been assassinated, right here in front of a hundred cameras. And he had played a role!

He began to pray, loudly and frevently, pausing every few seconds to demand they work on him faster, load him faster, get to the hospital faster.

Now they had arrived at the hospital, and the singular calm returned to him. He prayed as he hurried to stay by Randy's side. Disbelief gripped the staff as they rushed him in. A doctor spoke urgently, issuing orders, but Chris wasn't listening. His own prayers crowded his mind.

Not until he'd crossed the threshold did he notice a lone figure in his peripheral vision, watching them from behind. He turned his head.

Chris froze. Dear Lord, it was _her_!

They exchanged a long stare.

Someone touched his elbow. "Sir-"

"I'll be right in."

Chris turned and walked toward the girl, who still stood with her hands in her pockets, mesmerized by the scene. He stopped less than ten feet from the girl, seperated from her by a waist - high barrier.

Chris found his voice. "Do you know who I am?"

The girl searched his face, eyes blank.

"Do you know what's happening?"

"Are you my father?"

The sound of her voice - he would never mistake that voice!

"No. My name is Chris Abraham. Do you know who I am?"

No response.

"I know who you are," Chris said.

The air was thick between them.

"Who am I?" the girl asked.

Chris glanced back and satisfied himself that they could not be overheard. A part of him demanded that he call security. Unless he was wrong about everything up to this point, he was facing the woman who'd assassinated the president of the United States.

But if he wasn't wrong, calling out for help would be the worst thing he could do.

He jerked his head back to the girl. "You're more than I can tell you here. Did you kill the president?"

"Was that the president?"

"Yes. He was shot. Did you do the shooting?"

"No."

As far as Chris could see, the denial wasn't a lie. But that meant nothing; he couldn't see into the mind.

"Do you know my father?" the girl asked.

"No, I don't."

The girls hesitated a moment, then turned to her right and began to walk away.

"They've lied to you," Chris said. "It's all a lie."

The girl stopped and turned back.

He knew it! Chris pushed forward while he had the advantage. "Tell me where I can find you. I'll send a boy to talk to you. He's my son. No one else, you have my word."

The girl stood still, considering. Then she pulled her hand out of her pocket and dropped something on the ground. Without a word or a glance, she jogged across the street and into the alley.

Chris hoisted his leg over the short wall and struggled over. It was a matchbook, he could see that now. He ran to the matches and picked them up.

Peking Grand Hotel. Chinatown.

Hands trembling, lips mumbling in prayer, Chris pulled out his cell phone and made the call.

* * *

-insert dramatic sound- 

Aargh! They finally met!

And what does he mean by 'they lied to you?"

Aaaaargh! Too many questions!

Anyways, if any of my generous reviewers and enigmatic lurkers have similar questions as such I'll be glad to answer them.

on a side note. I would like to insert a little joke...persay.

-What has four legs, its green, and if it falls off a tree and lands on you it will kill you?

Anybody who would like to take a guess at it is more than welcomed to.


	17. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Natsuki unlocked the hotel room door, stepped in, and eased the door closed.

"Thank goodness you made it! Is everything okay? You're late."

Natsuki felt lost but refused to show it. "I'm here, aren't I?"

A wide smile split Shizuru's face. She hurried over to Natsuki, threw her arms around her, and kissed her on the lips.

Shizuru's enthusiasm washed over Natsuki, and the desperation that had plagued her for the last hour faded.

"We did it, Natsuki." Shizuru kissed her again, and this time Natsuki kissed her back. It was a great moment, wasn't it? They'd completed their first mission together. Shizuru had never been so happy when she'd successfully executed and excercise, but now, in the field, her joy was practically spilling over.

It was a very good day to be alive.

Natsuki suddenly wanted to see their work. "Isn't it on the news?"

"Are you kidding? They'd been playing it nonstop. A perfect hit, Natsuki. Youko sensei will be so proud."

"I don't care about Youko," Natsuki said. She clarified her statement when she raised her brow. "Not like I care for you."

"She's your mother," Shizuru said. "I'm your lover."

Natsuki winked at her. Imagine that, she actually winked at her. She wasn't used to being so forward with Shizuru, preferring instead to let her take the lead. Shizuru was, after all, her handler as well.

But she was emboldened by her tremendous success. "One day we should get married," Natsuki said.

Shizuru's eyes lit up. "And run off to Nevada?"

"Why not? We're lovers. Isn't that what lovers do? Run off?"

They stared at each other.

"You want to see it?" Shizuru plopped down on the bed and faced the television.

Natsuki sat next to her and watched the muted images. A reporter was speaking below a large graphic that read "President Stenton Shot." At the bottom was a disclaimer that the images were graphic.

She stared as the footage of her kill played in slow motion. It looked surreal. The president talking, pointing to someone in the crowd. A suddent tug at his shirt, his mouth caught open in a gasp, cluching a growing red spot on his chest. He dropped to his seat hard, then toppled back and lay still.

Shizuru was biting her fingernail when Natsuki looked at her for approval. "Amazing," she said.

Natsuki shrugged. "Just a day on the range."

But there was more to it, wasn't there? Far more. She was playing her game now, as she always had, but if Shizuru knew she'd spoken to someone at the hospital, she wouldn't be so happy.

Natsuki knew she faced a predicament that should end her life. She had to tell her. Shizuru would help her figure it out - she always had. But she couldn't bring herself to ruin Shizuru's happiness.

"What's wrong?" Shizuru asked.

Natsuki looked at her. "Hmm? Nothing."

"You're sweating."

"Am I?" She drew her fingers across a moist forehead.

"Whats wrong?"

Here it was, then. Natsuki couldn't lie to her. Never. Yet she'd just lie, hadn't she? She felt nauseated. She'd felt this way before, many times. When she lied to Youko while on the hospital bed. When she'd mistaken the truth about who she was and answered incorrectly. In that moment before they turned up the electrical current to help her understand the truth, she'd often felt nauseated.

"What is it?" Worry laced Shizuru's voice.

"Our lives might be in danger," Natsuki said.

Shizuru stood up. "They know?"

"No, not from them. From Ishigami."

Shizuru looked at the television. "But you've executed the hit perfectly."

Natsuki blurted the truth as she knew she must. "I talked to him, Shizuru! I went to the hospital and talked to the old man. He said his name was Chris Abraham."

"What old man? What on earth are you talking about?"

Natsuki pointed at the television, which was replaying the scene.

"Him. The old man behind the target. I recognized him. I felt as though I had to be sure..."

"Sure about what? The hit? We can verify through the media! You...You're saying you went to the hospital?"

"They took him into the emergency room. The man was there. He said he knew who I-"

"You _talked _to him?"

"I told him I didn't shoot the president."

"He actually asked you that?" Shizuru stared at her, face white, eyes round. She was angry. Or shocked. Both. At moments like this Natsuki felt nothing like the hero who could kill any man she wished. She felt more like a child.

Shizuru walked to the laptops that showed the views of the dummy rooms, slammed them closed.

"What are you doing?"

"We're getting out of here! You've been identified. It's only a matter of time before the old man matches you to file footage taken over the last few days. They'll have your face on every television in the world by tonight."

"He gave me his word that he wouldn't do that. He's sending his son."

Shizuru faced her, aghast. "Here?"

"No. To the Peking."

"How could you do this? You've just killed the president of the United States! Do you think some old man loyal to the president will let you walk away because you told him you didn't kill the leader of the free world?"

Natsuki fought the nausea sweeping through her stomach. She'd never seen Shizuru so distraught. She'd made a terrible mistake, she knew that now. They would terminate her as soon as they discovered it.

And Shizuru with her.

She stood and paced in front of the television. "I'm sorry, Shizuru. I don't know why I did it. He _knew_ me!"

"And I know you," Shizuru said quietly.

"Then tell me what to do."

Shizuru studied her. She loved her - Natsuki could see it in her eyes. Even when she made such a terrible mistake as this, Shizuru loved her.

Shizuru closed her eyes, trying to think. "Okey. Forget what happened. Right now we have to survive." Her eyes drilled Natsuki's. "You tell me, what will increase our likelihood of survival now?"

Natsuki already thought this through. Perhaps, if the cards fell in her favor, she could undo the damage before Ishigami discovered the truth.

"Even if the man sends his son to the Peking, they have no idea where we are. Our exit window is still four hours away. We should watch the room. If the boy arrives, we may be able to use him. We may also choose to ignore him."

"How will we know if the boy arrives?"

"Before coming here I went by the Peking and opened the door for him." Natsuki pointed at the computers Shizuru had closed. "We'll see him enter the room."

"We could never trust him. It's likely a trap."

"He could have alerted the police at the hospital, but he didn't. If the son comes, it won't be a trap."

Shizuru considered her logic. "We have no way of knowing he's really the man's son. I don't understand why we would need the boy in any case."

"We may need him to kill the president."

"The president's dead!"

"No, I don't think he is."

Chris Abraham walked briskly down the corrider, following the signs to radiology. Dr. Tom Davis was the chief radiologist. He would be the first to know what the X-rays showed.

They were working on Randy Stenton with an urgency that called for the immediate dismissal of all well-wishers, regardless of their political clout. Two Secret Service staff were posted outside the private room, and the hall was lined with staff, but not even his closest advisers knew the president's condition. All they knew was that he'd arrived at the hospital with a very weak pulse.

It wasn't great news. Many victims of gunshot wounds managed to hang on to life for an hour, even two, before expiring. In the case of such a prominent figure, no word on his condition would be given until it was certain.

The only thing the world knew at this point was that the president of the United States had been shot in the chest.

But Chris had to know more. He pushed open the door to the main radiology reception room. A dozen patients waited their turn.

The door twenty yards down the hall marked Authorized Personnel Only would lead into the same department. Chris hurried to the door and walked through.

"May I help you?"

He faced a nurse who'd stopped in the hall on his right. "Yes, I must see Dr. Tom Davis immediately. Can you tell me where-"

"Dr. Davis is tied up. Have you checked in at the reception?"

"I don't think you understand. I'm with the president. It's a matter of life and death."

She wasn't impressed. "You'll have to-"

"Now!" He started to walk. "Another minute and he could be dead. Now!"

She hurried after him. "Sir, they specifically-"

"I'm President Stenton's spiritual adviser, for heaven's sake. I don't have time for this!"

She hesitated only a beat. "Third office on the left. He's in his reading room."

Chris reached the door and put his hand on the knob. "This room?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

He stepped into a dimly lit room with four large monitors on one wall and a large vertical light surface on the opposite wall. The man he presumed to be Dr. Tom Davis stood in front of a row of large flatscreen monitors, reading a dozen X-rays. He didn't seem to notice Chris' entry.

"You're Dr. Davis?"

No response. The man was clearly focused.

Chris approached, scanning the blacklit negatives. "My name is Chris Abraham. I'm the president's spiritual adviser. Are these his X-rays?"

"CAT scans. I've already sent the digital images down to surgery," the radiologist said without looking over. "Interesting."

"What do you see?" Chris asked.

Now the radiologist looked at him. "Spiritual adviser, huh?"

"That's correct. I must know if you've found any anomalies."

"Not that I can see."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Show me nothing."

The radiologist picked up a telescoping pointer, stretched it out, and tapped the image in front of him. "The bullet entered here, between the seventh and eighth lateral ribs. No break. If you want to consider that an anomaly, be my guest."

"That's unusual?"

"It happens sometimes. Depends on the entry angle."

He rested the point on a dark spot just below what looked to Chris like the president's heart. "Missed the heart and the lungs by a hair. We have some minor bleeding here, but I would guess it's from the surface wound. You could also call that an anomaly, I suppose."

"That's not unusual?"

"It happens. But yes, it's unusual."

He tapped a third image. "The bullet exited here, between the fifth and sixth vertebrae."

"No breaks in the spinal column?"

"No."

"So that, too, is unusual?"

Dr. Tom Davis put his hands on his hips and stared at the three images he'd just pointed out. "None of these is particularly unusual. Put them all together, and I would say you have an impossibility."

Chris' pulse strengthened. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning that I've never seen anything like it. The bullet entered his torso in one of the only places it could have to miss all the internal organs and exit without so much as breaking a bone. Normally I'd expect to see the bullet break up and tear things to shreds. Most exit wounds leave holes large enough to put your fist through."

The radiologist faced him with a grin. "This is no anomaly, my friend. If I were a man of faith, I'd call this a miracle."

He knew it! Chris could hardly contain himself. Waves of relief washed over his body.

"And what injuries did he sustain?"

"You'll have to take that up with the surgeon. By what I can see, I'd say he sustained two flesh wounds. No internal bleeding. Nothing but a couple of minor cuts to his chest and back."

"Then why surgery?"

"For starters, they just got these pictures. They'll sew him up. His greatest danger was from toxic shock, but they got to him pretty quickly. If I were a betting man, I'd say the president will be up and out of bed in two or three days."

"And this isn't an anomaly?" Chris cried.

"I once read the X-rays of a skydiver whose chute failed to open. He sustained one broken finger and bruises. Unusual, yes; anomaly, no."

Chris hardly heard him. He whirled toward the door. "I have to talk to him."

"He's in surgery."

Chris exited the reading room and supressed a temptation to run. He hadn't felt so full of life in twelve years. There was no telling how Randy would react to this turn of events, but Chris would tell him everything. Today. As soon as he woke up.

* * *

Gah! I don't know what to say!

Well I guess I should say who answered the thing that I put at the end of the other chapter...you know...that thing...

Anyways, it was **NSKruger**.

Yay!

Its a pool table! Its funny because whats a pool table doing in a tree!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahhahaha...hahaha...ha...

Yea, I know, its not funny. but anyways some of the answers you reviewers left were...interesting...


	18. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

* * *

She wasn't sure , she said. Her mind had entered a strange place, and she didn't know what had happened, because she really, really didn't want her bullet to kill the president. But she would now make it right. She would; she swore she would.

Shizuru's worst fears were realized half an hour later when an NBC reporter giving a live report on location at Central Park was cut off by the anchor.

"...was here on this platform, where a forensic team is still looking for the bullet that-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Susan, but we have a live update on the president's condition. Reuters is reporting that the president of the United States has survived the assassination attempt that took place an hour and a half ago. I repeat, it appears that the president has survived the attempt on his life. The report goes on to say that the bullet resulted in flesh wounds only."

Shizuru stared at the screen, disbelieving. "How's that possible?"

Shizuru muted the television and sat on the bed, stunned. Ishigami would receive the news soon enough, if he hadn't already. It would be the end.

Behind her, Natsuki remained silent.

"Do you know what this means?" she asked.

"That I've failed," she said. "But I can fix it."

Shizuru stood with her back to Natsuki. "Youko sensei will know."

"She'll know what?"

"That your failure was intentional."

"_I_ don't even know that!"

Shizuru could feel her world collapsing around her. So much training, so many hard nights-in one moment, gone. Both she and Natsuki were now expendable.

Was this also part of the plan? She sometimes found it difficult to determine what was real and what was part of the game.

She looked at Natsuki, who was still staring at the silent news broadcast. "You affected the bullet's trajectory the same way you have been for the last two weeks."

Natsuki refused to look at her.

"Today you placed the bullet precisely where it had to travel to knock him down without killing him. We thaught you more about the anatomy of the kill zones in the human body than most medical students ever learn. Now you've used that information to save your target. And by doing so, you've signed our death warrants."

"We don't know that," Natsuki said. "If it was intentional, I would remember."

"Then what do you remember?"

"That I didn't want the president to die. I thought that the old man behind him might be my father. Or that the president himself might be. I was confused and knew that Youko had probably put these ideas in my head to test me. As you said."

"But you couldn't overcome the confusion?"

"I thought I had."

She sighed and closed her eyes. "It doesn't matter. Ishigami will assume that you've countermanded his order to kill. He will never accept such failure."

Her cell phone chirped.

"That will be him." Shizuru picked up the phone. "Yes."

Ishigami's distant, gravelly voice spoke into her ear. "I see she missed."

"Yes. We're working on a third attempt."

The phone hissed.

"Natsuki's leading the son of the president's advisor-"

"I don't want details," Ishigami said. "Reito is standing by. You have until midnight. If I haven't received confirmation by then, she must be eliminated." He paused. "I want you to do it personally. I'll give you two hours following any such failure on her part. If you don't follow through, I'll trigger the implant and hold you responsible. Are we clear?"

She hesitated. "Of course."

The line clicked off.

Shizuru kept her back to Natsuki and gathered her wits. Natsuki couldn't see her face flushed.

"If the boy shows, can you do what you suggested?" she asked, setting the phone down slowly.

Natsuki had formulated a simple plan for a third attempt, but she had her doubts about the willingness to finish the job. If she didn't, she would.

"Why wouldn't I?"

_Natsuki's mind is so fried that she can hardly hold a conviction for an hour_, Shizuru thought.

"You've failed to finish the job twice now, both times because you associated the target with a father figure. None of this will change."

"But I know why now," Natsuki said. "Youko put the desire in me."

"That knowledge didn't help you execute the hit today."

Natsuki didn't respond to her obvious point. It didn't matter. Her psychological manipulation had failed to affect Natsuki as she'd hoped. Perhaps the truth would work better.

"I have a confession to make," Shizuru said. "I lied to you yesterday. Youko sensei didn't plant the thoughts of your father. I needed you to feel strong about today's attempt, so I gave you a plausible reason for your failure. It seems that this father business is coming from your own mind on its own terms."

Natsuki looked lost. Stunned.

"Maybe it's my fault you feel so conflicted. I was trying to help you."

"And I would have done the same for you," Natsuki said. "It must have been horrible to have to lie. Yet you did it to protect me. Thank you."

Shizuru couldn't bear this manipulation. What had they done to Natsuki?

The mental stripping was one thing over there, but here in the middle of New York, it seemed inhumane.

"Can you do it?"

"Send the boy back with a message for the president?"

"Unwittingly armed with a toxic canister, " Shizuru finished. "It would kill everyone in the room."

"Of course I can do it. It's what I've been trained to do."

"You were also trained to put a bullet in a target's heart, yet you willfully missed."

"I don't remember willfully-"

"There he is!"

The laptop showed a short boy standing inside their room at the Peking, looking around.

Natsuki walked to the desk, studied the image for a few moments, then slammed the laptop closed.

"Let's go," she said and strode toward the door.

The Peking Hotel was a five minute walk. With any luck the boy would find Natsuki's note instructing him to wait ten minutes.

They walked quickly, silently.

Natsuki was less sure of what she was doing now than at any time in her memory. Her response to the confusion was to retreat. There were many times when survival depended on retreat. It was how she defeated the heat in her pit. The hornets on the shooting range. The hospital bed under Youko's care. There was always a safe place in her mind somewhere. She just had to find it.

At this moment, that safe place was probably execution without thought. They had until midnight to undo the mess she'd made. Poison was the preferred wapon of many assassinations, and tonight Natsuki would remember why.

If her plan failed, she would be left with only one alternative. She would find a few more-familiar weapons and go after the president in the hospital. Her chances of survial were minimal, but she would be dead at midnight anyway. If she was going to die, she would die fighting for Shizuru's survival. Natsuki owed her her life.

They entered the Peking through a rear door on the right, room 202.

The small device that Shizuru carried in her purse consisted of a remote triggering device and a small canister of colorless, oderless hydrogen cyanide gas, potent enough to kill any living creature in a ten-by-ten room withing five minutes. The boy's mission would be a simple one: in the president's hospital room, he would call a given telephone number and then verbally relay a message intended only for the president. In this way, they could reasonably believe that the boy was talking to the president, not a third party.

There would be no message, of course. As soon as the boy confirmed the presiden't prescence, they would trigger the canister hidden on the boy's person with a certain degree of confidence that both were in the same room. A similar mehtod using explosives rather than gas had been used successfully among drug cartels in South America. Certainly not infallible, but with nothing to lose, Natsuki was willing to assume the odds before she attempted anything more direct.

The door was still cracked open. She entered the room, followed by Shizuru.

It was empty. Chris Abraham's son had left?

"Hello Kruger."

Natsuki turned to face a blond-headed boy standing in the bathroom doorway. He looked to be thirteen or fourteen. A sheepish smile curved below bright blue eyes.

"My name is Samuel," the boy said. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"Should I?"

Natsuki had no intention of remembering anything. Memory only brought confusion and contributed to her failure.

"They've stripped you of your identity," Samuel said. "You really don't know who you are anymore. Amazing. We knew..." His eyes shifted to Shizuru, then returned to Natsuki. He carried himself with surprising confidence for such a small boy.

"We knew you couldn't do it. The truth runs too deep in you, Kruger. We always knew that you could only go so far."

A ringing bothered Natsuki's ears. "Why do you keep calling me Kruger?"

"Kruger Kuruga. That's your real name. You were a chaplain in the army when the X Group took you. You were on leave in Egypt."

"A chaplain?"

"You're mistaken," Shizuru said. "You're confusing her with someone else."

"Don't let my appearance deceive you," Samuel said. "I'm much older than I look. And I can prove all of this if you give me the chance."

The ringing in Natsuki's ears had become a soft roar. She'd been a chaplain who was now called Natsuki? How would the boy know? Why would the boy lie?

She tried to think of herself as Kruger. The name sounded odd.

"Do you mind excusing us for a moment?" Shizuru asked Samuel.

"Now?"

"Yes. could you step outside? Just for a moment."

"Okay."

The boy stepped out into the hall, and Shizuru closed the door behind him. She returned, motioning silence.

"Do you know this boy?" she wispered.

"I don't remember."

"It's Ishigami. I can smell it on him."

"I don't understand. How could Ishigami know-"

"The old man knew you. Who's to say that he's not with Ishigami?"

Natsuki's mind spun. She'd faced and accepted more confusion in the last twenty-four hours than she'd allowed herself in many months. The nausea she'd felt earlier made a comback.

"It's like Ishigami to put redundancie in place to deal with the posibility that you will fail to assassinate the president. Why not the old man and the boy?"

"Why two people instead of just one? And why would he use a boy?"

"What better way to gain your trust and lead us to a place where Reito can kill us both? The one thing Ishigami fears more than anything else is his own assassins." She took a deep breath. "I've seen this before. If I'm right, the boy will suggest you go somewhere."

"I don't understand why-"

"Then trust me! I lied to you once, but I won't lie to you again. Ishigami knows your weakness for a father figure and he's exploiting it."

"Ishigami doesn't need the boy. He could kill me with the implant."

Shizuru nodded and paced. "True. But I don't like it. Ishigami is a suspicious snake. This would be like him. I think the boy is lying!"

"What are you suggesting?" Natsuki asked.

"That we walk away from this boy. We can't believe his lies, and we can't use him the way we planned. If he's connected to Ishigami, there'll be a trap waiting for us."

Natsuki nodded. It made sense in a twisted way. She'd never considered betraying Ishigami, but at the moment she was desperate for any sense at all. She accepted Shizuru's truth and felt her nausea ease.

"Then we'll dismiss him and I'll go after the president on my own."

"It's the only way we can prove ourselves to Ishigami without risking being caught in a trap," Shizuru said.

She let the boy back into the room.

"You don't trust me, do you?" the boy said. "I came because my father and I know what you did, Kruger. You shot a bullet through the president's chest in a way that wouldn't kill him. They found the garbage bin that you shot from. Hitting a man at two thousand yards is very difficult. Sending a bullet through a precise point at that distance is impossible. Yet you did it."

The boy knew all of this? Natsuki glanced at Shizuru. She was as confused as her.

Samuel continued. "You may think there's some kind of scientific explanation for your abilities, but the truth is not so simple. Your real power is much greater than anything you've seen. In fact, you were more powerful before they took you. By messing with your mind, they messed with your power."

"How do you know this?" Shizuru demanded.

"Because I've been watching Kruger ever since she left Paradise."

A strobe ignited in the back of Natsuki's mind. Paradise. It was familiar. Terribly familiar. But she couldn't place it.

"Do you remember?" Samuel asked. "I'm here because I want you to go to Paradise, Kruger. Your mother still lives there. Her name is Saeko, and she's been sick about your disappearance."

Samuel's words fell into her mind like bright flashes along a line of lost history. _Saeko. Paradise. Chaplain._

_Kruger._

_Kruger._

_My name is Kruger._

But she couldn't remember any of it!

"If I were Ishigami, I would tell you to say all these things," Shizuru said. "Be careful, Natsuki."

"Her name is Kruger," the boy said. "Not Natsuki."

"And why are you speaking as if you know more than any boy should?" Shizuru demanded.

"Because I am no ordinary boy," Samuel said. "And now I have to go."

He turned and walked to the door. "Remember, Kruger," he said, turning back. "Go to Paradise. It'll all become clear in Paradise. Project Showdown still lives."

And then the boy was gone.

* * *

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I'm lovng the fact that everybody's so confused!

just kidding. I'm kind of torturing myself here with this story too, so...

I FEEL YOUR PAIN REVIEWERS AND ENIGMATIC LURKERS!!!!

So, the story is getting more interesting, in my opinion, with all the characters meeting and stuff.

I'm not sure if any of you noticed, but Samuel was mention or at least referred to in earlier chapters. Just incase anybody comes up and asks :

Woah! Who the hell is he!? or Where the hell did he come from?!

So yea, thats about it. Don't forget to review!


	19. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

"The president wants to see you"

"Thank you."

Chris Abraham brushed past the nurse and hurried toward the guards posted outside Randy's room. The president had been out of surgery for forty-five minutes, and Chris knew that the local anesthetics hadn't dimmed his mind in the least. If he knew what Chris had for him, he'd have told the nurse to let him through sooner.

He dipped his head at the guards, one whom opened the door for him. "Thank you."

"Chris!" The president grinned from his hospital bed as Chris crossed the room.

"Miracles never cease," Randy said.

"Clearly. How are you feelin?"

"Sore but otherwise suprinsingly well. They're using local anesthetic at my request, but i'm not sure how well it's working."

"Your minds clear, then. Thats good. Your prognosis?"

"I'll be up in two days, they say."

Chris glanced at two aides who sat by the window. "I need to speak to you privately."

"Give us a moment."

Chris waited for the aides to leave before he spoke again.

"Do they have any leads?"

"You're asking if I told anyone about this woman you recognized?"

"Yes."

"I've only been conscious for an hour, half of that time on a table with bright lights overhead. The game's changed, I'm sure you understand that. Someone just put a bullet through me. An attempt was made on the life of the president of the United States-this is far bigger than either of us."

Chris knew that what he had to say wouldn't be easy. Knew that Randy might very well reject it. Most sane man would.

"Randy, please. What I am about to tell you may affend you at the deepest level. God knows that I am culpable in matters you know nothing about, and I'm willing to suffer any fitting consequences when this is all over. But i'm begging you to open your mind."

The president studied him for a moment, then looked at the ceiling. "God willing, this _is_ over. Whoever's behind this will be dealt with in a manner expected by both the office and the nation."

"Of course. But you're wrong - it's not over. In some ways it's just beginning."

"I'm a reasonable man, Chris. But you've caught me in a down moment. Please don't patronize me."

"Down but not dead. That's the point, isn't it? Why are you down but not dead? You know the details of the shooting?"

"I was shot. The bullet missed my internal organs. Evidently somebody up there still wants me around."

"You were shot by a garbage bin at over two thousand yards. There are only a handful of shooters in the world who could accomplish such a feat. Do you know what a bullet's trajectory looks like after it's traveled a mile and a half?"

"I didn't realize you were so interested in shooting."

"I've become interested as of late. I'm sure that the FBI will get around to filling you in on this, but let me put it in layman's terms. When a bullet leaves a barrel, it's spinning. That spinning motion eventually forces the bullet to move off its axis and rotate in circles. They call it parabolic rotation."

Chris moved his finger through the air like a corkscrew.

"At two thousand yards, the diameter of the bullet's parabolic rotation is about a foot. There's no way the shooter can know which part of the rotation the bullet will be in when it strikes a body, only that if it's perfectly aimed, it will strike somewhere in a twelve-inch circle. Did you know this?"

"No. Go on."

"Since the bullet is moving in a circular pattern, it will enter the body at a slight angle and tear the flesh in that direction. Like a corkscrew. Lateral tear."

"Okay, so what's the point?"

"The point is that I've seen images of your wound. The path of the bullet was perfectly straight. It entered and exited your body in a perfectly straight line. And that straight line happened to be through one of the only paths a bullet could travel without causing significant injury."

"Like I said, a miracle."

"The lack of damage was intentional, Randy!"

"That's impossible."

"Of course it is. Which is why you have to listen to me."

Chris had pushed Randy to the edges of his reasoning many times, and he knew the look of a man being stretched. Randy was being stretched.

The president sighed. "I'm listening."

Chris stood and walked to the end of the bed, dragging his hand on the bed rail. "You're alive because the shooter is a girl named Kruger Kuruga. Do you recognize the name?"

"Thats the name of the woman you recognized in the footage of Simm Rosfez?"

"Yes."

"Then she's in custody? You thought she was after Rosfez!"

"No, she's not in custody. And I was wrong about Rosfez being the target. In hindsight, I realize I should have known. Samuel didn't know _who_ would be killed, only that a very powerful man would be assassinated. Either way, this doesn't change the fact that the killer made an impossible shot. I believe that the only person alive who could do this is named Kruger Kuruga."

"This has to do with Project Showdown."

"Kruger was one of the children in Paradise, yes."

Randy closed his eyes, brought both hands to his forehead, and swept his hair back, sighing. "Chris..."

"I'm not finished. Please, you know about Project Showdown. You of all people should consider what I'm telling you. Without reservation!"

"I thought the children were all placed in homes with strict confidence so that they couldn't be tracked."

"They were, all but a few who were special cases."

"It's one thing to believe that dragons once existed. It's another to actually go hunting for one because someone believes they still exist!"

"You won't have that problem long, my friend. You'll believe soon enough. I have a feeling that you're going to meet more than a dragon before this is over."

"It _is_ over!"

"Not until you die, if you go after the only person who can save you. Kruger Kuruga must be allowed to follow the path she is on. No charges, no media leaks, not a word."

He'd said it. Prematurely, perhaps. Not as part of a carefully constructed argument that had the president eating out of his hand, but there it was.

"I should let the woman who tried to kill me walk? Please, Chris, you're-"

"You're alive because she wants you alive. If she wanted you dead, believe me, you would be dead. She's capable of far more than even she knows. Take her out of the equation, and another person will shoot you. That person will shoot to kill. You will die."

"This..." Randy stalled. "You're making an assassin out to be some kind of hero."

"Call her what you like. She's the only thing standing between you and death."

"Based on a vision-"

"Based on what I know!"

A knock sounded. One of the guards opened the door. "Is everything okay?"

"Unless you hear a scream, assume I'm fine," the president said.

The man bowed out.

"Forgive me for raising my voice, but I can't overemphasize my conviction on this matter. I'll explain everything when we have more time, but for your sake I'm begging you to do everything in your power to thwart any investigation that leads to Kruger as the shooter."

Randy closed his eyes again. He wondered if Chris knew what kind of stress he had just put Randy under.

"What else are you not telling me, Chris?"

"Only what makes no difference to you."

"You're right, you are culpable. What makes you think Kruger has this supposed power?"

"Besides what she just pulled off? Read the report again. We didn't pick up on it until three years ago, but it makes sense. She has...a gift."

He couldn't read the president's reaction to this.

"And what made you so sure she wouldn't kill me?"

"I thought she was after Rosfez, and I _wasn't_ sure Kruger wouldn't kill him. As for killing you, it's not in her nature. Again, read the report and you'll understand far more than I can convince you of. We are dealing with matters that reside between the head and the heart, Randy. I had faith in Kruger. Enough to put the world on her shoulders."

"Including my life?"

"Samuel's vision saved your life. If we hadn't intervened, you would be dead right now. I would expect some gratitude when this finally sinks in."

"Intervened? How did you know Kruger was with the X Group?"

Chris took a deep breath. He bit his lip and answered slowly, with a tremble in his voice.

"Because we put her there."

The president kept his eyes locked on Chris for a long moment.

"My, my, you have been busy."

"For your sake."

"Based on a _vision_."

"Based on Project Showdown, which gave me the faith to believe in this vision."

"And would you happen to know who ordered my assassination?"

"No. The X Group has no political agenda."

"If you had to guess?"

Chris hesitated. "Simm Rosfez. Impossible to prove. It's not over, Randy. The X Group will not accept failure."

"And neither will I."

"I don't think you can neutralize them. Certainly not in the time we have."

"Then what?"

"Keep a heavy guard. Make sure everyone around you is armed to the teeth. And pray that I'm still right about Kruger."

* * *

Sorry for the long wait and the lack of shiznat in this chapter. (please don't throw rocks)

this chapter just had to be put in because it clears some things up and makes it less confusing (for some people)

but anyways i'll try and post the next chapter as soon as possible and I promise there will be shiznat.

Also, I relized that 'Kruger Kuruga' is a really weird name and like greatpumpkin81 said it is cruel, what kind of mother would do that. but it serves its purpose.

What purpose you ask.

well...I can't tell you yet.

for all those who reviewed thank you very much.

I never imagined reviews could become so addictive. One minute I'm 'oh, a review. I'm happy .' and the next its like 'Aaaargh! Me want more reviews! know! GRRRRR!' so ya...

keep the reviews coming...think of the kittens...


	20. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I own nothing!...Except for my clothes...wait...nevermind.

* * *

Kruger 

The more Natsuki allowed the name to reside in her mind, the more disoriented she felt.

She and Shizuru had walked back to their hotel room in a dizzy silence. She'd fashioned her own theory as to how and why the old man Chris and his son, Samuel, would make such outrageous claims, and Shizuru convinced her to follow a logical course based on that theory. But Natsuki knew Shizuru's own confidence was shaken.

She also knew that she would follow whatever direction Shizuru gave her, but she couldn't dislodge a terrible suspicion that something was wrong.

Shizuru left her sitting at the table and went for a list of weapons that Natsuki needed for her final mission againts the president. Using Samuel was no longer an option. Natsuki would have to do this herself. Shizuru did her best to assure her that everything would be okay. That they were only doing what they were both destined to do. That the only truth was the truth Natsuki knew when she looked into Shizuru's eyes.

Natsuki believed her. She was Shizuru. She was the only person who truly loved her. Natsuki would die for Shizuru.

But would _Kruger_ die for Shizuru?

Would Kruger believe her?

Would Kruger kill the president of the United States?

Then there was Samuel, a boy of maybe thirteen who talked and acted like someone twice that age. An apparition from Kruger's past, or another lie sent from Youko to challenge Natsuki. Or an associate of Shizuru's like Reito, playing some deep psychological game that would ultimately manipulate her into a position of yet deeper loyalty.

Her body began to sweat thirty minutes after Shizuru left. She tried to stop it by retreating into the safe blackness of her mind, but her face continued to flush with heat.

Frightened by her inability to control the emotions or her response, she hurried into the bathroom, stripped off her clothing, and took a cold shower. The water felt like heaven on her body, and for a few minutes she successfully put Samuel out of her mind.

Satisfied, she dried and donned the black pants and shirt she would wear tonight. She didn't have to form a plan as much as select one from several dozen already waiting on the edge of her consciousness, then modify it to meet the current situation. The fact that she didn't know the hospital's layout limited her. She would have to make adjustments during the operation.

_Kruger. Your mother's name is Saeko. She is waiting for you in a town called Paradise. My name is Samuel. I'm not an ordinary boy._

The sweat returned five minutes after she'd dressed. Buckets of it, soaking her shirt in less than a minute.

She quickly stripped and jumped back in the shower. This time the cold made her shiver. First sweat, now shivers - she was losing her self-control!

Natsuki stepped from the shower and attempted to forcefully towel away the gooseflesh. But she wasn't succesful. She stared at her reflection in a full-lenght mirror affixed to the inside of the bathroom door. Pale from the months in darkness. Lean, ribbed with muscle, marked by dozens of scars on her shoulders, hips, and feet - Youko's little gifts to her. But it was the way her skin prickled with a thousand goose bumps that fascinated her now. More accurately, the fact that she wasn't able to make them go away.

She should ask Shizuru to give her a treatment! Maybe she carried some drugs with her. Shizuru could strap her to the bed and use the electricity from the wall outlet to encourage her mind to react as it was trained.

No, no, what was she thinking? She had to complete the mission tonight, before midnight! And it was always Youko, not Shizuru, who administered her lessons - she doubted Shizuru would want to shock her.

"Who are you?" she asked the shaking image in the mirror.

She answered herself. "My name is Natsuki."

"And who is Natsuki?"

"Natsuki is Kruger."

The thin sheet of sweat glistened on her skin. Somewhere deep in her mind, where she erected walls of blackness and formed friendly tunnels that led her to the light, her understanding of truth seemed to have shut down.

Natsuki who was Kruger began to panic, and this time she couldn't stop herself. She stood before the long mirror, shaking and sweating and panicking.

She had to get to the bed! Lying down would allow her to relax and focus. She stumbled to the bed, still shaking, and lay down on her back. The white ceiling dissolved into the sea of lights that made her dizzy.

Why was her body doing this? Why was she afraid? She was afraid because she was shaking, and she was shaking because she was afraid, because she couldn't stop sweating.

She heard the door open and close, but she couldn't seem to do anything about it, She couldn't stop shaking

"Natsuki?"

"Shizuru..."

"Natsuki!" Shizuru dropped her bag and rushed over to her. "Natsuki, its okay. Shh, shh, shh. You're shaking!"

She placed her hands on Natsuki's chest and face. "You're burning up! What's happening? Please, you're scaring me."

"Shizuru..." She couldn't seem to say any more past her violent shakes.

"Shh, shh, shh...I'm here now. I'm home. It's okay. I'm so sorry."

"I'm afraid," she managed.

Shizuru lowered her head to her chest and began to cry. "Kruger," Shizuru wispered.

_Kruger?_

"Please, Kruger. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Please stop."

Natsuki closed her eyes and let her mind fall back into blackness. She suddenly didn't feel anything. No hot, no cold, not even Shizuru on her chest.

Shizuru was calling her by her name. Her real name. In a moment of stunning clarity, Natsuki knew what was happening. Shizuru was loving her as she'd never loved her before. Shizuru was speaking a deep and personal truth. Something Natsuki herself didn't even know.

Shizuru's soft whisper, calling her Kruger, cut to her soul in a way that no kiss ever had. She was swallowed by a profound sense of intimicy that she'd never imagined could exist between two people.

Natsuki stopped shaking. She opened her eyes. Shizuru was weeping. In that moment she knew that Shizuru had wept with her in the tunnel because she was torn by this terrible secret.

The secret that she was Kruger.

Shizuru carried the burden for her because she loved her. Natsuki put her hand on Shizuru's head and stared at the white ceiling, moved by her great love. And by this revelation that she really was Kruger Kuruga, not Natsuki Kuga. They stayed that way for a long time.

It was Shizuru who broke the spell, long after she'd stopped sniffing, long after her breathing settled. She lifted her head from her chest, searched her eyes, then retrieved he clothes from the bathroom and set them on the bed. Natsuki sat up slowly.

"Dress," she said, walking to the window. She pulled back the drapes and stared out at the darkness.

Natsuki dressed, numb and directionless.

"Your name is Kruger Kuruga," Shizuru said, crossing her arms. "You were a chaplain with the United States Army. They took you by force when you were on leave in Cairo. That's the way the X Group works."

"Then...Then the boy was right?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, I panicked. I didn't know what to do. I'm sorry. I lied to you."

"My name is Kruger," Natsuki said.

"Yes."

"Kruger Kuruga."

"Yes, yes. I'm so sorry. I-"

"I'm from Colorado?"

"I don't know." Shizuru turned around and looked at Natsuki with cried-out eyes. "I don't know about the rest. Please, please, I beg you to forgive me."

Natsuki felt as if she was going to burst into tears. But she wasn't Natsuki, was she? She was Kruger.

"You have to leave me, Natsuki. I don't care what they do to me, you have to run."

"I could never leave you. I have to finish this or they'll kill you!"

"No, listen to me. It's not too late for you to reclaim your life. We can never be together again, not after what I've done. You have to-"

"No!" Rage welled up in her chest. This is why Shizuru had been so quiet while she lay on her chest. She'd been convincing herself that she had to leave her, although she loved her desperately. "You can never leave me! I need you."

"You think you do, but you don't." She walked to Natsuki, keeping her eyes locked on hers. "Please, Natsuki, you're an innocent child, don't you see? Youko sensei's turned you into an innocent child and then abused you. And I've been her accomplice. You even talked like a child!"

"Tell me one thing. Do you love me?"

Shizuru's eyes pooled with tears. "Yes."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. At first it was one of Youko sensei's games. But it's become much more. I love you very much."

"Then don't hurt me more by leaving me. I don't know who I am. If I'm a child, you can't leave me alone!"

Her words rang in the small room, silencing with their truth. There were only two things that Natsuki knew about herself. The first was that her name was Kruger. The second was that apart from names and places, she was totally and terribly lost.

Her identity had been stripped.

"I'm lost," she said. "And without you, I'm hopelessly lost."

"I've _tortured_ you!"

"And now you will help me heal. I'll do what they've asked me to do. With your help, we can play their game and find a way to beat them."

Shizuru paced between Natsuki and the bathroom door, staring intently at the floor. Then at her.

"You can't finish this mission. You may not understand why now, because your moral compass has been dashed, but you can't."

"They'll kill me with the implant."

"Unless..."

"Unless what?"

Shizuru was anxious now. "Unless you can block the implant. Long enough for it to be removed."

"I couldn't even stop myself from shaking. How can I block-"

"That's why Ishigami is so nervous of you! You survived the electric chair, why not the implant? It's designed to detonate if tampered with in any way, but what if you could shut it off just long enough for a surgeon to remove it?"

"Because the tunnel is gone!"

"Then I'll help you find it again."

"Electric shock?"

"No, not that way!" She grabbed Natsuki's hand and kissed it, then held it againts her cheek. "Never that way again, I promise."

Natsuki considered Shizuru's words. What choice did she have? She could either kill the president or take her chances with the implant. Shizuru was right, there was no real choice. She would have to set her mind on shutting out the implant long enough for a surgeon, assuming there was one, to take the implant out, assuming such an operation could be done without damaging her mind.

"They'll still come after us," Shizuru said.

"And without me, you don't have a chance."

Shizuru's eyes searched hers, side to side. Natsuki felt a moment of deep empathy with her. Shizuru would pay such a price to love her.

_What if all of this is just part of the game?_

Natsuki dismissed the absurd thought. See, she could still control her mind. She'd just done it.

She leaned forward and kissed Shizuru. "I will die for you, my love."

"No, you won't. If you die, then I die. They'll never quit. It's forever, Natsuki. Do you understand that? If we do this, we'll be on the run together for the rest of our lives."

"Maybe we can find some life before we die."

"Maybe."

"Then we should go to Paradise."

Shizuru grabbed the bag of weapons off her bed. "Not until we take care of the implant. We have six hours. There's a doctor outside the city that we've used before. The implant sits behind the brain, set to trigger if exposed." She glanced at Natsuki. "You'll have to remain conscious so you can block-"

"Ishigami will trigger the device before then."

"Not if we leave now. We still have some time."

"Does the doctor have a pit?"

Shizuru looked surprised that Natsuki had asked that question. It was a ridiculous question, of course. Natsuki didn't know why it came out.

"This is New York. There will be no pits in New York. Ever."

"Okay. I'll find another way to block the pain. And the implant."

"You'll have to find a way to block the tracking device for a few hours, or he'll know we've left the city. Can you do that?"

"I can try. Do we have a choice?"

Shizuru shook her head and closed her eyes. "I can't believe where doing this. Even if we get rid of the implant, Ishigami will send Reito after us."

"I've beat him before."

Shizuru's eyes opened. "Not in real life, you haven't." There was a strange darkness in Shizuru's eyes that bothered her. "Not when he pulls out the stops. We'll have to find a hole to live in."

"I love the dark," Natsuki said.

"And I hate it."

They quickly packed two duffel bags, one for the weapons and one for the rest. This was their collective material wealth, this and $87,000 in U.S. currency remaining from the $250,000 Shizuru had brought with her.

Shizuru scanned the room after they'd wiped it down. "One last question before we leave. Should I call you Natsuki or Kruger?"

She thought for a moment.

"Natsuki," she said. "I don't know who Kruger is."

* * *

**AN:**

Its all getting so hectic. Don't you think?

Well anyways in the next update someone is going to be making a comeback. ( yea. you know who it is) but unfortunately i'm not quite sure when i'll be updating.

Who ever thought college could be so hard. The homework...it...it just won't stop...it just keeps coming...Aaaaargh!

And now to answer to some reviews:

**greatpumpkin81**: you have to try really hard to be able to offend me (_**really**_ hard O.o) In truth, when i read your review i had a really good laugh, so don't worry about it.

is that it? yea i think that was it. to the rest who reviewed, much appreciated and i'll update when i finish my homework...if it ever stops. Gah!!!


	21. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

_He is called Reito. He's not really the Reito, of course. He doesn't really know who he is anymore, so he is who he wants to be, which is far more and far less than any Reito._

The man taps his thumb on the leather steering wheel in the Buick he took from a nameless parking lot this morning. The radio is on. He dislikes the song's lyrics, but the beat fills him with energy.

_Pain is in the game,_

_and the game is in the name._

The singer has no idea what pain is. If Reito had enough time, he might find the singer's home and rearrange his view of pain.

_The name is Slayer_

_If you really want to know_

_He hunts in the dark and kills in the light_

Any man who can sing such words without knowing their meaning deserves to be hunted down. Still, the beat is good and Reito hums with the guitars, unbothered by his butchering of the tune.

_He's not Reito. He's Robert De Niro. He's Hannibal Lecter. He's whoever he wants to be..._

The one called Reito cracked his neck and cleared his mind. His drive to tell the story perfectly dogged him like those irritating hornets. And by _perfectly_ he meant in a way that kept them forever in the dark where they belonged.

The story had to be more personal. First person. He started again.

_I am called Reito. I'm not the Reito, of course. I don't know who I am, so I am who I want to be, which is far more and far less than any Reito. A Reito has a history; I do not. A Reito is weak; I am not._

_I smile like Robert De Niro. I laugh like Hannibal Lecter._

He'd touched the hand of the gas station attendant fifteen minutes earlier when he'd stopped to fill his tank. Did the girl have any idea whose hand she was touching? No.

Did she know how many throats he'd cut? No.

Did she even suspect that he hated women? No.

Did she want to kiss him? Yes.

Did she realize how much he liked corn nuts? No.

Would he return and kill her for wanting to kiss him? He didn't know. Probably not - he wouldn't have much idle time in the next few days.

Reito paused. He understood the plan, but he'd never liked it much. Yes, he embraced the idea in the very beginning, but that was before he understood that he had the power to find a better plan. Like telling a better story.

Playing the part of Reito had grown stale and tired. The killings had become boring. How many ways could you kill a person anyway?

There would come a time when he would walk into Ishigami's hospital and take off his head with a machete. Better yet, shave him bald and fry him in that electric chair of his.

Kruger had picked up some skills, but she was still weak. The showdown ahead made Reito's skin crawl with anticipation.

He would kill the doctor as Ishigami had ordered, and then, with any luck at all, the true game - the one he'd waited so patiently for - would begin.

He'd been watching Kruger's progress since she and the woman, whom he hated only slightly less than Kruger, set foot in New York. They'd gone off the reservation last night, leaving the hotel room spotless. Even so, Reito knew their ultimate destination and in fact had anticipated that Kruger would would do what she was know doing.

Reito knew not only where they were heading but _how_ they would get there, based on the last few tracking signals emitted by the implant before it had stopped transmitting.

He exited the freeway, backtracked a mile on the frontage road, cut west for half a smile, and pulled into a long gravel driveway. Horses grazed in a fenced green pasture on his right. He'd killed a horse once. The experience had left him cold. They were dumb animals. Household pets offered only slightly more fascination.

Dr. Henry Humphries was a veterinarian. Reito had never needed his veterinary services, but the good doctor had once sewn part of Ishigami's fingers back on.

"I am not Reito today," he said, parking by the large barn.

"Today I am simply..." He considered several choices. "U_n_man. I'm Unman."

He pucked the Buick in park, interlaced his fingers, and cracked hs knuckles loudly. This was a cliche, of course. But he loved cliche because it had become so vogue to hate cliche. In truth, those who cringed at the use of cliche were their own cliche.

He stepped from the car and scanned the barn. His favorite movie was _Kill Bill_. Despite his general hatred of woman, he liked Black Mamba because she fought like a man. And she wore yellow leather, which appealed to him for no reason that he could understand, no matter how much he thought about it.

_Unman_. Unman walked up to the door and wiped his black canvas shoes on a mat that read "All animals Welcome."

He tried the door, turned the knob, and walked in without announcing himself.

Fireweed Mexican tile floor. White walls in need of fresh coat. Clean at first glance but dirty under the skin, like most people. The place smelled of manure.

Manure and Kruger.

A man in a brown tweed jacket stood to the right of a workbench that held a large metal tub, something you might wash an animal in. Behind him, a dozen stalls housed a couple of horses, some pigs, and a lamb of all things. A fluffy white lamb.

The lamb bleated.

"May I help you?"

Unman took his eyes off the sheep and faced the man. White, fat, and old. Not fat-fat, but a good fifty pounds of blubber on his gut. Unman imagined the man without a shirt because he had both the time and the imagination to do so. Evidently sewing up animals didn't burn the calories as much as, say, kickboxing or jumping on a trampoline, either one of which would do the doctor good.

The man wore gray polyester pants and an untucked yellow shirt. He held a syringe in his right hand. If he was expecting any female company, he wasn't concerned with impressing them. Maybe Unman liked this doctor.

"What's your name?" Unman asked.

"I'm sorry, was I expecting you?" The man showed only slight fear. He filled the syringe from a vial and laid both on the table.

"I'm Unman. I'm looking for a women who stopped here last night. Good-looking girl, about so tall, and a hot woman who tends to boss her around. The girl had a small device buried in her skull that evidently didn't go off as it was designed to. We think someone here took it out, thereby sealing his own fate. So I guess I'm not really looking for the girl who's all that, or the woman who bosses her around, but the doctor who helped them escape. Need to clean things up, if you know what I mean."

Suprisingly, the man still showed minimal fear. Interesting. Maybe Unman should drop the clever-meant-to-terrifying cliche and be more sinister. But that failed to interest him, so he continued.

"If you are that doctor, I'll need the implant. Then I'll have to kill you so that you don't tell anyone else about it. If you're not the doctor I'm looking for, then I'll have to kill you for knowing that I'm looking for a doctor to kill. So who are you, the doctor who needs killing, or the innocent bystander who needs killing?"

Now more fear showed on the man's face. Cliches and all.

"They were here," the doctor said.

"And the implant?"

The man produced a small box from under the bench in front of him and held it out.

Unman walked forward. He knew what would happen now. Any man who showedd only a little fear when presented with the prospect of his own death had a plan. The doctor obviously thought he could survive this meeting.

The cliches weren't working as well as Unman had hoped. He wanted to get this over with and make the call.

He stopped twenty feet from the man. "Throw it here," he said.

The doctor made as if to throw the device with his left hand, but Unman didn't care about the implant. Syringe man was right-handed, and his right hand was under the bench top, holding something - probably a gun - that filled the doctor with confidence.

Unman could have waited for the man's hopeless attempt to distract him by throwing the implant.

He could have waited for the man's gun to clear the counter.

He could have even waited for the gun to go off. All of these would have been consistent with a tough villain defying death with elegance. Cliche.

But the time for cliche was gone, so Unman pulled a gun from his right hip and shot the doctor through his nose.

The man dropped like an elevator car, smacked the bottom of his jaw on the bench, bounced back with a few shattered teeth to go with his broken nose, and fell heavily to the ground.

In all likelihood, the doctor hadn't even seen Unman draw.

He walked to the window and pulled out his cell phone. Dialed the number. Two of the horses were looking at the barn, alerted by the gunshot. He wondered who would take care of the doctor's horses now.

"Yes?"

"The doctor is dead. I have the implant."

He could hear Ishigami's breathing in the silence.

"Kill Natsuki first," Ishigami said. "Then complete the contract."

"Thank you." Unman closed the phone.

Reito hated Ishigami, but he hated Kruger more. In fact, he'd been born to hate Kruger. Ishigami didn't know this, Youko didn't know, but Reito knew. And now he was finally in a position to do something about that hate.

"Game on, Kruger," he said. Was that cliche?

* * *

**AN:**

Hooray for me and my 30 minute brakes.

HOORAY!

I'm so lazy.

Anyways,

Sorry for no shiznat in this, the next chapter will definately have some. So look forward to it.

Also thanks to all those who review, i really wish i could answer them, but i'll just end up saying something stupid, so i wont, lest i be mauled by reviewers.

But,

I would like to share a quote i found:

"Yet each man kills the thing he loves. By each let this be heard. Some do it with a bitter look, some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!"

Is it just me or does that not make you think about natsuki and the hime girls...but mainly natsuki o.O


	22. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Paradise was nestled in the Colorado mountains off the beaten path, several miles from the main road that passed through Delta. 

The trees in Colorado were different from any Natsuki had ever seen. Tall evergreens that pointed to the sky mixed with deciduous trees similar to the ones that surrounded the compound. The terrain was severe and sharp, with cliffs and huge outcroppings of rocks.

The Rocky Mountains. Natsuki watched from the car with fascination. It was familiar to her only because the boy had suggested it should be. Or did she remember?

They'd flown into Denver as Emily and Jane Austring, knowing full well that Ishigami could trace the false identities he himself had provided. But it would take even someone as powerful as Ishigami at least a day to track them down. By then, they'd be gone. As soon as they'd visited Paradise, they would assume new identities and move on.

"Paradise, three miles," Natsuki said, reading a sign ahead on their right.

Shizuru took the turnoff and angled the truck up a narrow paved road. Within half a mile they were driving down a winding strip of blacktop. The edge fell sharply on the right into a deep valley. A metal guardrail provided a measure of security.

This was the road to Paradise. It could have been the road to Mexico as far as Natsuki knew. None of it was more familiar than a suggestion.

"I like the mountains," Shizuru said.

"They're nice," Natsuki said.

"Wait until you see the desert."

They both knew that if the boy had been right and Paradise was Natsuki's home, Ishigami would know as well. Regardless of what happened here, they had to be gone by the end of the day.

They would go to the desert in Nevada.

Shizuru glanced at Natsuki. "Do you recognize anything?"

"No."

"Maybe when you see the town."

"Maybe."

The road descended, took a sharp turn, and fed into a valley. One moment they were watching trees rush by; the next they were looking down at a town.

Natsuki wasn't sure if it was Paradise at first. Then they passed a sign that said it was. _Welcome to Paradise, Colorado, Population 450._

She began to sweat.

"This is it," Shizuru said. "Do you recognize anything?"

A large building with a five-foot sign that read "Paradise Community Center" loomed ahead on the right. Beyond it, a grocery store with gas pumps out front. Houses on the left, running up to a a tall church with a pointed steeple.

"Can you pull over?"

"Here?"

"Yes, pull over."

She didn't recognize anything but her heart was hammering and she thought that might be a good sign.

Shizuru pulled the pickup truck onto a dusty shoulder a hundred feet from the community center. "Do you recognize it?"

Natsuki stared ahead, searching her memory. This building had once been something else. A burned-down pile of rubble. Or a theater. Or maybe her mind was just making things up.

"Natsuki?"

"I...I don't know." She climbed out and faced the town. Something had happened here, she could sense it if not remember it. Her body was reacting even if her mind wasn't. Shizuru joined her, exchanging looks between Natsuki and the town.

"Why can't I remember?" Natsuki asked.

"Youko sensei's no amateur. Only the strongest minds can endure her methods. She told me she'd never seen a mind as strong as yours. She was determined to either break you or kill you."

Shizuru looked up at the cliffs to their right. "She broke you," she said soflty. "She tore your identity down until it was nothing, and then she rebuilt it, many times over. Your mind is still strong, stronger than before, but now its walls are built around the wrong identity."

"Then it'll have to be broken again," Natsuki said.

Shizuru didn't answer.

"I don't know if I want to be broken again."

"I understand. But if you reclaim your true identity, you'll have fewer scars. You have a strong mind, Natsuki. A very, very strong mind."

She started forward along the road's dusty shoulder. Shizuru followed. Nastuki spread her hands, palms facedown by her sides. A slight breeze passed through her fingers. She could smell the dust rising from her feet. The hot afternoon sun cut through the cool mountain air. She felt as if she was walking into a dream on legs of soggy cardboard and a body cut from paper.

The street was deserted. A bench...

Natsuki stopped and stared at the empty bench on a boardwalk in front of a rustic building called Smither's Barbecue.

"What is it?"

"Does that bench look familiar to you?"

Shizuru stopped beside her. "I've never been here - why would it?"

Natsuki's breathing thickened. For a moment she thought she might start to shake and sweat like she had in the hotel room. A tingle lit through her fingertips.

She stepped out onto pavement and angled for the middle of the road. She wasn't sure why she wanted to walk down this road - maybe it gave her a better view - but she picked up her pace and crossed to the yellow dotted lines that split the blacktop in two.

The tingle spread from her fingertips into her bones. She pushed her feet over the dashes, striding with purpose. But in her mind it was all happening in slow motion. She was staring at the bench and marching into a mesmerizing dream without the slightest idea of where it would take her.

But she'd been here before.

"Natsuki?"

She veered to her right and angled for the bench. She fought an urge to run up to the bench and tear it from the ground.

Her breathing came hard, pulling at air that refused to fill her lungs.

Something was wrong with the bench. She hated this bench. This bench was-

"Natsuki!"

She stopped.

"What's wrong?"

It was just a wooden bench. Sitting on the boardwalk, ten feet away now. Natsuki looked up at the restaurant behind the bench. Smither's Barbecue. Beside it the grocery store with the gas pumps. All Right Convenience. The large building behind and to her right. Paradise Community Center.

Natsuki slowly turned and studied the rest of the town. A dozen small businesses on the right side of the street. A hair salon, a flower shop, an automotive shop...others. Houses.

Houses were on the opposite side. A large lawn ran up to the church.

"I don't think I've been here," she said.

"Why were you running for the bench?"

"I don't know. Why was I shaking in the hotel room? Why did I climb into a crate full of hornets? Why did I put myself in an electric chair to die?"

Shizuru shifted her eyes. She'd hurt her feelings.

"I'm not complaining," Natsuki said. "I just don't know anything anymore. I used to know who I was. Now I don't. I wish we'd never gone to New York."

"Kruger?" A voice was calling her name.

Shizuru's eyes darted over Natsuki's shoulder. Natsuki turned and faced a medium-built man with dark hair who stood in the restaurant's open doorway. The man's eyes widened with a smile.

"Kruger Kuruga. Well I'll be..." He twisted his head and yelled through the door. "Paula, get yourself out here and see who's come back."

The man marched down the steps and across the boardwalk and was nearly upon her before it occurred to Natsuki that showing her ignorance would raise unwanted questions. She smiled.

"Give me a hug, girl!" The man took Natsuki's hand and wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her close. "Good to see you, Kruger."

The man slapped her back.

Natsuki didn't know what to say.

"And who's your friend?"

"This is Shizuru."

The man extended his hand. "Hello, Shizuru. I'm Steve. Welcome to Paradise. Pun intended, always intended, although I can guarantee we don't always live up to the name."

A woman in a blue dress ran down the steps toward Natsuki. "Kruger? Kruger Kuruga, my goodness! We heard you were missing!"

Natsuki assumed she was the woman Steve called Paula. Their excitement in seeing her was infectious. She felt her face flush with an odd mixture of embarrasment and comfort.

They liked her.

Paula gave her a hug and kissed her cheek. "Are you okay?"

She smelled like a flower - a familiar and warming scent. She must find out what perfume she was wearing.

"Kruger?"

"Yes?"

"Are...Are you okay?"

"Yes. I'm fine. Just a little..."

"She's on pain medication," Shizuru said, offering her hand. "Nothing serious. I'm Shizuru."

"Hello, Shizuru. You're..." Paula glanced between them. "You're not..."

"No, no." Shizuru laughed. "Just good friends."

"Well, I must say, Kruger, you know how to pick beautiful friends."

"Thank you," Shizuru said.

Steve patted Natsuki on the back again. "Well then, come in and have a drink. On the house, of course. It's not every day we get a hero coming home."

"Actually..." Shizuru caught Natsuki's eyes.

"Actually, I would like to go home," Natsuki said.

"Of course you would," Paula said. "Does Saeko know you're here?"

"Saeko? No. Has she moved?"

"From town? Goodness, no. She really doesn't know? She's going to faint! You go on. Don't let us keep you. How long will you be in town?"

"Just a day," Shizuru said.

"Only a day? Then Promise me you'll stop by and fill us in. the others'll be thrilled to see you. Does anyone else know?"

"No."

"Most of them are at the fair in Delta, but they'll be back by night. We'll do something. Right, Steve? We could have a barbecue."

"Absolutely."

"Okay."

"Perfect. I haven't seen Saeko today, but that doesn't mean much. We don't see her much these days. She's kept to herself lately. She might have gone to Delta, but she might be home. You go on, don't mind us."

"Okay."

Steve and Paula, presumably the proprietors of Smither's Barbecue, stared at Natsuki, clearly expecting her to go home.

"What perfume are you wearing?" Natsuki asked.

Paula seemed slightly taken aback, but she smiled. "You like it?"

"Yes."

"It's called Lavender Lace. Saeko gave it to me for my birthday."

It was her mother's perfume!

"Can you tell me which house she lives in?"

Steve and Paula looked at each other, clearly baffled.

"You don't remember?" Steve asked. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm sorry, it's just this...I get bad headaches...I'm trying out a new pain medication, and it's making me..." She searched for the word.

"Loopy," Shizuru said.

"Loopy," Natsuki said.

"Well, loopy or not, it's good to have you home." Steve pointed down the street. "Third house on the right. The white one."

Natsuki turned and started to walk.

Shizuru thanked Steve and Paula - _Something I should have done myself_, Natsuki thought - and caught up to her.

"Hold on, Natsuki. Please."

"What is it?"

Shizuru grabbed Natsuki's arm and pulled her back. "Just stop for a second. I realize this is important to you, but we have to be careful. You can't be so obvious. We'll be followed here. Ishigami will stop at nothing to squeeze these people for information if he suspects that you've told them anything that could implicate him. We were here - that's all. Nothing more."

"Obvious? Why am I obvious?"

"For starters, you _are _acting loopy. This is nothing like the calculating killer you were trained to be. _I _don't even know who you are anymore. I'm just asking you to be careful."

"I was a chaplain," Natsuki said. "Did I have faith?"

Shizuru studied her eyes for a few moments. Her features softened, and she offered a consoling smile, touching Natsuki's cheek with her thumb.

"I'm sure you did. I'm sorry. Just try to be...normal."

"I'm not normal - Youko saw to that. I want to be normal. You know that's all I want. But I don't even know if my true self _is_ normal."

She glanced back down the street and saw that Steve and Paula were at the door of their restaurant, watching them. Shizuru had a point - Ishigami could cause them some trouble.

"I can be normal for them, as normal as I can bring myself to be. But with my mother..."

With her mother she didn't know what. She Probably wouldn't even recognize her.

Shizuru took Natsuki's hand in hers and turned her back toward her mother's house.

"Come on," she said. "Your mother is waiting."

Reito walked the B concourse in Denver International Airport, wondering what it would be like to be the thin rail of a man who hurried just ahead of him. The man was late for a flight, judging by his periodic watch-check. Was he going home to his wife and children? 

Was he flying to Boston for a meeting with powerful bankers the next morning?

Was he eager to catch a plane that would deliver him to his mistress in Dallas?

Was he going to die of leukemia in twenty years or get hit by a car in two days, or did he already have a terminal disease and not know it?

Why did this man even want to live? Didn't he know that it would all end soon enough anyway? Didn't he know that a billion people with two legs and two arms, full of vim and vigor just like him, had lived and died and were now just memories in a few people's minds? Assuming they were lucky - most didn't even survive as memories. They were simply gone.

The simple, terrible tragedy of life's story was that it all ended on the last page. It didn't matter what cliches or wonderful descriptions or clever words people used to tell their stories; the greatest certainty any person had was that it would be over in about four hundred pages or eighty years, depending on how you looked at it.

Of course, there were those who believed in the afterlife. Reito hated those people. Not because he thought that they were right, but because he knew that if by some small chance they were right, he would not be joining them in their new journey of bliss.

Reito lost interest in the skinny man and entered the moving sidewalk, letting his eyes rove over the concourse.

Hundreds of people hurried to and fro or sat at the gates waiting for their planes. Tall ones, short ones, skinny ones, lots of fat ones, young ones, old ones. Meat, thousands and thousands of meat packages. And every one of them thought they were that one package that actually mattered.

Reito could easily kill any one of them at this very moment and walk away to tell how their particular story ended.

This meant he actually had _control_ over their stories. He could write the last chapter of their lives. The end.

He could actually end a few dozen stories right now, at this moment, before the authorities managed to stop him.

Not catch him, mind you. Stop him.

Reito wasn't proud of his ability to control others by writing their final chapter. He was simply fascinated by it. The killing itself had long ago become rather tedious, but the power he possessed to end them made his mind buzz.

He crossed his arms, spread his legs, cocked his head all the way back, and closed his eyes.

No doubt dozens of people were staring at him at this moment, wondering why in the world he was drawing so much attention to himself by striking such a presumptuous pose.

Small minds.

Paradise, Colorado, was a five-hour drive from the airport. Six counting the slight detour to collect the weapons stashed at the safe house they'd prepared in Grand Junction. If his intel had informed him that the lovebirds had caught on to his every good plan, he would have flown to Grand Junction and driven from there. But the pair was clueless, so he had plenty of time. And Reito preferred to drive. It offered more flexibility and was safer.

Without looking, Reito knew precisely where the moving sidewalk ended. He stepped onto the carpet and took five full steps before opening his eyes.

Kruger Kuruga's story was coming to an end.

* * *

**AN:**

So how about it, eh? you got shiznat and crazy reito. aren't i nice.

yes...yes i am...

anyways, I guess alot of you were expecting the clash between Natsuki and Reito, but alas that will wait. the story will build up to it so don't worry.

**Chuckabutt aka Kara Papas: **Really! Sweet! (takes out hit-list)...Just kidding, so far no one is causing trouble but if they do i'll be sure to call upon your bashing skills

**glowie: **well...natsuki used her dog as a weapon, and a sword is a weapon so HA!!! I WIN!!! (does victory dance)

To the rest who reviewed thanks very much. again if there are questions i shall try and answer without giving the story away.

Before i go, heres a question:

Do you know what a butterfly is?

(**warning:** please refrain from giving me a dictionary answer less you be smack in the head by a rolled up piece of paper.)

the answer shall be revealed in the next update


	23. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

Natsuki stood at the white house's front door, staring through the screen at the small, octagonal crystalline window that revealed fragmented image of the inside. 

Fragmented like her.

"Go ahead," Shizuru said softly.

Natsuki lifted her hand, rapped on the screen door's metal frame, then stepped back.

_Hello, Saeko._

Hello, Kruger.

_Are you my mother?_

No one came to the door.

"Maybe she's not home," Shizuru said.

Natsuki was about to knock again when the latch rattled. The knob turned. The door swung in.

A woman stood behind the screen door. "Sorry for the wait, I was-"

She froze, eyes round. Natsuki's heart pounded. She didn't recognize her, but it could be because the screen impaired her view. She was her mother, had to be her mother, would be her mother. Somehow everything was going to be okay now.

"Kruger?" She lifted a hand to her mouth. "Kruger!"

She was Kruger and this was Saeko. Her mother.

"Hello, Mother."

Saeko flung the screen door open and rushed to Natsuki, throwing her arms around her neck. Natsuki staggered back a step and instinctively put her arms around her torso.

"Kruger, oh, my Kruger! You're alive! I was so worried."

She kissed Natsuki on her cheek, then squeezed her tight and buried her face in her neck.

Natsuki, who knew she was Kruger, held her gently as she wept.

_Are you my mother?_

Suprisingly, Natsuki didn't remember her as she'd expected to. She was wearing a different perfume - roses. She was beautiful and her tears were real and her eyes were a light green, like hers, but she couldn't remember. Natsuki stood still, suddenly frightened.

Saeko stepped back, took Natsuki's face in both hands, and studied her features. "Look at you. You haven't changed a bit." Her eyes darted over Natsuki's shoulders. "You've leaned out. Are you okay?"

"Yes."

Natsuki could see the questions flooding her mother's mind. One of them was probably why she wasn't doing the things daughters were supposed to do in reunions like this, whatever those were. Jumping up and down or whooping and hollering with joy? She could manage a handshake, no more than a cold handshake.

Natsuki stepped forward and hugged Saeko rather awkwardly. "It's good to be home," she said.

Saeko patted her on the back. "Come in, come in. Who's your friend?"

"This is Shizuru. She's the woman that I'm in love with."

Shizuru looked surprised, then quickly blushed.

"My, we are full of suprises," Saeko said, smiling warmly. "Please, come in."

They walked into the house. Brown carpet. Tan leather couch and love seat. Kitchen with yellow daisies on the wallpaper. A counter divided the kitchen from the eating area. The hall ran past three doors on its way to the back entrance. This was the house she'd grown up in?

She stared hard, intent on remembering. If she'd spent eighteen years in this house, the memories would be here, in the darkness somewhere. They had to be. Just there, beyond the black veil.

It occurred to Natsuki that she was in darkness. She's entered her tunnel. At the end of the tunnel she saw a light. That light was what, her identity? Her childhood?

Saeko was saying something about cookies, but Natsuki's mind was now running, running down the tunnel toward the light. She could hear her feet slapping on the wood floor. Hear her breathing, heavy in her pursuit.

The light seemed to be moving away from her. The farther and faster she ran, the farther the light moved.

Her mother was calling her name.

_Kruger?_

Saeko was crying out for Natsuki to rescue her. Rescue Natsuki, trapped in this tunnel.

_Kruger!_

"Where are you?" she cried.

-/-/-/-

Shizuru was standing by the sofa table with Saeko when Natsuki bolted down the hall. Natsuki ran to the first door and threw it open.

Saeko watched her go, dumbstruck. "Kruger?"

"Where are you?" Natsuki cried.

"Kruger?"

"Where are you?"

Natsuki spun from the room, took a sharp right, and slid to a stop by the next door. Opened it. Stared. Slammed it shut.

"Where are you?"

Confusion laced Saeko's voice. "Kruger!"

Natsuki stumbled toward the last door, shrouded by shadows. She banged through and disappeared.

"What's wrong?" The blood suddenly left Saeko's face. "What's she doing?"

"I think she's looking for herself," Shizuru said.

"That's her room. What's...? Is she okay?"

How could she explain the horrors that had brought Natsuki to this place? "No. No, she's not okay, but I think she will be."

No sound came from the bedroom.

"What's she doing?" Saeko asked again.

Natsuki suddenly appeared in the doorway to her bedroom and stared at them. She looked as though she might have seen an apparition intent on torturing her soul.

"Mom?"

"Kruger..." Saeko's voice was twisted with anguish.

Natsuki walked down the hall, eyes fixed on Saeko. Something had changed. Her eyes were large and streaming tears. The sight brought a painful knot to Shizuru's throat. How could she ever forgive herself for what she'd done to Natsuki?

And yet, she was meant to walk this path with her. She'd known this would happen. Now that it really was happening, she wondered how she could have allowed herself to fall in love with her.

Kruger rushed toward them, blubbering like an open tap.

"Mom. I'm so scared." The rest of her words were garbled by a gushing sob. She ran into Saeko's arms and hugged her with desperation.

Shizuru began to cry.

Mother and daughter were both blurting things now, but their words were stepping on one another, so she couldn't make them out. Then she heard Natsuki say, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, please forgive me." She was blaming herself for what Shizuru had done.

Shizuru turned from them, walked into the living room, and eased herself into the love seat. This was her doing.

Every switch thrown by Youko as she stood silently by.

Every needle that had pierced her flesh.

Every drug that had weakened her resolve.

Every treachery, every betrayal, every moment of loneliness that Natsuki had endured out of misplaced love for her.

"No, no, no," the mother kept crying. "It's not your fault. You didn't do anything. Please, Kruger. Please, I love you. I love you."

"I put you through so much pain," Natsuki cried. "I can't live with myself."

"No, no, no. Stop it, you can't talk like that. Whatever they did, it's okay now. You're home. I'm here for you."

Shizuru covered her face with her hands, put her head back on the cushion behind her, and joined them in their sorrow.

-/-/-/-

"Kruger," Natsuki said. "I want you to call me Kruger now."

"Okay." Shizuru offered her a small smile. "Kruger."

Something in Natsuki had broken. She was now Kruger even though she still felt like Natsuki.

She'd caught up to the light in her tunnel, passed through it, and stepped into a new world in which Saeko was her mother. The room she'd run into was the room in which she'd grown up in, she could remember that with perfect clarity. This was her house. They'd spent an hour in the house, and she'd viewed each room a dozen times, desperately mining her memory for more, more.

She still couldn't remember any details of what had happened during her childhood without being told, but when Saeko told her, she did remember, however vaguely.

Did it matter? She'd found her mother. She was whatever her mother was.

Kruger stood up from the couch, walked over to where her mother was seated, and bent over and hugged her again. Then she returned to the couch, sat down, and swallowed a terrible knot in her windpipe.

"You've become very emotional," Shizuru said.

Kruger couldn't seem to stop the gushing.

"I'm still having a hard time believing all of this," Saeko said. "A year ago you were a chaplain in the army. Now you're..."

Her voice trailed off. They hadn't told her about her mission or the extent of her training. Only generalities that suggested why she was so different from the way Saeko remembered her. Saeko deserved that much. The rest would come in time. Kruger was afraid she might take Shizuru's head off if she knew the whole truth.

"I'm not an assassin," Kruger said. "I haven't killed anyone. I was only trained as an assassin."

"What about your faith? You were a person of great faith-surely that hasn't just disappeared."

"I don't know. I just learned who I was last night. I can't. My mind's still spinning."

"How can the government make someone forget their own mother? It's inhuman!"

"I remember you," Kruger said, fighting emotion again. "I do remember you." Although she wasn't really sure she did. Perhaps she was forming a fact in her mind now rather than actually recalling her face.

"The training was extensive," Shizuru said. "And these people have developed ways of erasing a soldier's identity, not only their memories. Kruger's mind is much stronger than most, which makes her recovery even more difficult. Did Natsuki show any unusual...abilities when she was younger?"

"Kruger," Kruger said. "Please call me Kruger."

"Sorry. Kruger."

Saeko looked at Kruger inquisitively. "Not that I can remember. Do you remember Project Showdown?"

Samuel had mentioned the name. _Project Showdown still lives._ But Kruger drew a blank. "No."

"You can't remember anything about it?"

"No, why? What's Project Showdown?"

"Wow. Well, I don't know where to begin, really."

The phone rang shrilly. Saeko ignored it.

"Do you remember the monastery up in the canyon?"

"No. I remember you and this house and what you've told me, that's all."

The answering machine kicked on after five rings. Saeko's voice.

"You've reached the Kurugas. Please leave a message."

Kurugas. Not Saeko Kuruga, but the Kurugas, as in more than one. She'd never given up on her daughter. It made Kruger want to hug her again.

"This is Chris Abraham. It's critical that I reach you, Ms. Kuruga. Please call me immediatle on my..."

Kruger didn't wait for the rest. This was the old man from the hospital. Samuel's father. She went for the phone and snatched it from the cradle as Chris repeated his number.

"Hello, this is Kruger."

A pounding of machinery filled a long pause.

"So you _have_ gone home," the voice said.

Kruger looked at Saeko and Shizuru. "Yes."

"Thank goodness. How much do you remember?"

"I only remember who my mother is."

"They'll be coming for you. If _I_ can find you, they'll find you."

"Yes, I know."

"How many people besides your mother have you talked to?"

"Just Steve and Paula. The Smithers."

"Good. Can you trust me?"

"Do I have a choice?" She _wanted_ to trust the man. "I think so, yes."

"Then I want you to meet me in the canyon above Paradise. Do you remember it?"

"No."

"Saeko can tell you how to reach it, but come alone. It's where all of this started. And it's critical that you leave no evidence of your visit. Saeko has to leave town with Steve and Paula. Immediatly. I obviously don't have to explain-"

"She's leaving in an hour," Kruger said. "We've already explained enough of the situation to persuade her to leave."

"Good. Meet me at the mouth to the canyon."

"Shizuru will come with me. She's my...She's with me."

"Can she be trusted?"

"Without reservation."

"She's from the X Group."

Kruger turned to face the kitchen sink. "She loves me."

"I'm sure that you think she does. I don't know-"

"She's with me," Kruger said.

"Fine, Meet me in one hour. You'll have to leave soon."

"Where are you?"

"In a helicopter, headed your way. One hour, Kruger. You'll want to hear what I have to say, I can promise you."

-/-/-/-

The afternoon light was fading as Reito steered the rental car through the mountain pass on Interstate 70. The car he drove was a Dodge Ram pickup, a powerful vehicle that would take him to Paradise quickly. He'd rented a sedan at the airport, driven to another rental location, parked it in a nearby lot, and then rented the Dodge under an alias.

Renting the truck had taken longer than expected because the clerk was belligerent in hir feeble attempt to impress Reito.

The clerk's name was Lawrence. Twice Reito's size and as dull as a lump of charcoal. He expected Reito to pay him respect for those qualities. Reito drove away fighting a terrible urge to return and teach Lawrence a few lessons about life and death.

_Dust to dust, ashes to ashes._

He was tempted to light this particular lump of coal on fire, thereby reducing him to ashes. Instead, he drove on, up the mountain, after more enticing prey.

Reito removed his right hand from the steering wheel and formed a C above the cup holder between the seats. The Styrofoam cup in the holder began to vibrate below his hand. Time after time he'd held back his power while they continued to strip Kruger of her identity.

The cup stopped shaking and rose an inch.

There had been days of reprieve, of course. Assignments to kill in which he'd shown his victims more than a bullet. But on balance, the whole experience had tried his patience to the snapping point.

He glanced at the cup. It flew vertically and stopped in his hand.

The questions he had to settle in the next three or four hours was a simple one: Should he kill the mother now or use her as leverage if Kruger managed to surprise him?

For that matter, should he kill Saeko first or Shizuru first?

They both started with _s_.

They both had six letters in their last name.

They were both three syllables.

They were both dear, dear, dear to Kruger, Kruger, Kruger.

One had given birth to Kruger, which was an offense worthy of death in and of itself.

The other had humiliated Reito a hundred times, which would earn her a place in the hall of wide eyes and open mouths on sticks.

He lifted the cup to his lips and drank the scalding coffee.

Which would it be? Maybe both. Yes. Why not both?

* * *

AN: 

very dark...

naja, the exams are putting me in a bad mood...although there is less homework. which is good, cuz that means more updates.

the butterfly answer is...a butterfly is a DOUCHEBAG!!! (i need not explain myself)

reviews:

**Bad one: **Q1- they had already changed natsuki's mind (and identity) and know they (as in shizuru and natsuki) are trying to get back natsuki's memory. Q2- yes, but you shouldn't really worry about that, the story mostly focuses on natsuki and shizuru and the reito dude.

**glowie: **the bbq people are good people, though they're not that important. The chair shall remain an enigma. (because i say so). and the butterfly thing has nothing to do with the story, its just me hating on them. But, there will be some reito butt kicking coming soon.

**shiznats: **thanks for reviewing.


	24. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

"Do you see anything?" Shizuru asked, adjusting the small duffel bag on her shoulder. They'd hidden the other bag with their papers, the money, and two pistols behind the seats and brought two handguns, the knives, and their personal effects with them. 

Kruger studied the rocks ahead. "It's a canyon."

"I can see that. He's not there."

"He said at the mouth of the canyon. This has to be it."

"Maybe this is the wrong canyon."

"My mother was specific."

Kruger stared up at the towering cliffs on each side. Night was coming fast. Already the canyon was encased in deep shadows. The encroaching darkness was comforting.

"I think I've been here before," she said. "It's like a tunnel."

"You remember being here, or does it just remind you of where you've been?"

"No...No, I think I've actually been here." Kruger headed into the canyon.

"This is the mouth. We should wait-"

"I've been here!" She began to run. "It's coming back! I've been up here before."

Shizuru ran after her. "Kruger!"

Kruger spun around and skipped backward. She flung her arms wide and yelled at the tops of the cliffs. "I've been here! I've been here, Shizuru. I can remember it now. I remember."

Shizuru grinned despite herself. "That's good, Kruger." Her eyes scanned the sheer stone walls on each side. "Meanwhile, our truck's down in the town. Reito's probably sifting through it right now. We should have left."

"We _are_ gone. How will he know about this place?"

"I don't trust him."

"Then trust me! I've been here, and there's no way he knows about this place."

"Kruger!" The voice echoed softly through the canyon behind her.

Kruger spun. There, thirty yards up the canyon, stood the old man from the hospital. Chris Abraham.

"That's him," Kruger said under her breath. "Do you recognize him?"

"He was on the stage at the president's press conference."

They walked up to Chris. When they stopped twenty feet from him, he approached them, wearing a mischievous grin.

"The helicopter dropped me off twenty minutes ago. They'll spend the night on top of the cliff."

"And us?" Shizuru asked.

Chris' eyes shifted to her. "Shizuru, I presume."

"This is Shizuru," Kruger said.

Chris let his gaze linger on Shizuru for several seconds. "Welcome to ground zero, Shizuru. As for us, we will be spending the night around the corner. Come."

Chris turned on his heels and angled toward a massive boulder on their left. Kruger followed with Shizuru hurrying to catch them. The wall behind the towering boulder split to reveal a second, smaller canyon.

"I've been here, " Kruger said, picking up her pace.

The older man's chuckle bounced eerily off the cliffs.

Kruger grinned. She'd been here. She was so eager to embrace the memories triggering the distinct deja vu that she began to sprint. Past Chris, around the boulder, up to the mouth of the smaller canyon, where she slid to a halt.

The small canyon ran thrity meters in and then stopped abruptly at a rock slide that rose sharply to the top of the cliffs. A small log cabin had been built on the sand at the base.

This was wrong. She didn't know why or what, but something was wrong with the scene. The deja vu popped like a soap bubble meeting a needle.

"What happened?" Kruger asked.

"So then you do remember," Chris said. "The monastery that used to be here. Project showdown."

"No. Samuel and my mother both mentioned Project Showdown. I...I know that I've been here, just like I know I lived in Paradise and that my mother is Saeko. The rest..."

"The rest will come," Chris said. "Shall we?"

They walked to the log cabin in silence. Inside, an oil lamp burned on a crude wooden table flanked by two benches. There were no stairs leading to the loft over the kitchen, only a rather unstable ladder made of twine-bound branches. One bed upstairs. Two beds in a bedroom along the back wall. That was it.

"Outhouse is behind," Chris said. "It's not the Fordwal, but it allows me to get away and reflect on Project Showdown whenever I am tempted to doubt. If you ever find yourself in that same place, doubting, you may come here. In fact, I strongly recommend it. Please, have a seat."

Shizuru and Kruger sat on one side of the table facing Chris, who still wore his mischievous grin.

"Your mother and the Smithers left Paradise?" Chris asked.

"She said she'd make the arrangements."

An image of the young boy who'd confronted them in New York filled Kruger's mind. Samuel was a younger version of his father. Staring at the older man now, Kruger was sure she did know them both as they claimed. Samuel had been her friend.

But that was impossible.

"How could I have known Samuel?" Kruger asked. "He's still a boy."

"Is he?" Chris looked at Shizuru. "What I say tonight must stay with you. No one can know. Not a soul. I don't think anyone would believe you, but that's not the point. What I tell you tonight is sacred. I don't mind saying that I'm nervous about your hearing this, Shizuru."

"Then maybe you shouldn't tell me. I've done my share of damage already."

"She has to hear," Kruger said. "Without her I'm lost. What sense does it make to love someone you can't trust?" If I'm ever going to be normal again, it will be with Shizuru's help."

"As you insist. But I don't think you'll ever be normal, Kruger."

_Then I'd rather die._ She kept the thought to herself and watched Chris' kind eyes. There was a mystery hidden there that Kruger had to uncover.

"You shot the president?" Chris asked.

Kruger hesitated. "Yes."

"She saved the president," Shizuru said. "If not for Kruger, Reito would have been given the assignment, and the president would be dead."

"I know. And so does the president. He's given us a window while he decides what to do. It won't be easy convincing the authorities that the president's shooter was actually his savior." Chris drummed his fingers on the table. "My, my, where to begin."

"Who am I?" Kruger asked. "Start with that."

"You're Saeko's daughter. You grew up in Paradise-"

"Not my history. Who I am."

"You're someone who knows how to ask the right questions. That's a start."

Chris cleared his throat and continued when faced by silence. "To know who you are, you have to believe some things you may not want to believe. How do you think you managed to affect the bullet's flight path?"

Kruger thought about her training. Lowering the heat in her pit. The electric chair. She glanced at Shizuru.

"By affecting the zero-point field," Shizuru said. "The quantum theory behind observable telekinetics. Are you familiar with quantum theory?"

"Quite. I was fascinated with the theory years ago. There's some merit to zero-point-field research, more than most realize, but I can gurantee you that Kruger's power doesn't originate in her mind."

"Then where?"

Chris took a deep breath. He drummed his fingers again. "Do you believe in the supernatural, Kruger?"

-/-/-/-

Reito parked the truck behind the large theater and strode down the yellow dashes of the lone paved street in Paradise, Colorado, imagining the showdown that once occured here.

The town was empty, as far as he could see. He stopped in the middle of the road and studied the buildings in the waning light. It had all started here. Fitting that it would end here. Even more fitting that it would end because of him.

A screen door slammed to his right. He turned slowly and saw her standing on the porch of a white house. Kruger's Saeko. _Hello, Mommy._

For a moment they just looked at each other. No surprise from either him or her. The stuff of a perfect plan.

She stepped off the porch and made her way to the car parked on the street.

Reito broke his stare and strode for the bar.

-/-/-/-

"Supernatural?" Kruger said. "I don't know what I believe. I used to, I think. I was a chaplain, but I can't remember my faith. Do I still have faith?"

"Your faith has clearly remembered you," Chris said. "Your power comes from your faith. At least partially."

"You're saying her power is supernatural," Shizuru said.

"Regardless of what we believe or want to believe, there is evidence of a great power that supersedes anything explained by our current understanding of science. Yes, the supernatural. How is it possible for one man to see events that will happen hundreds or thousands of years after his death?"

Kruger had never heard of such a thing. Actually, she was sure she had, but she didn't remember.

"I don't know."

"It's a gift. Words that one day come to life. Do you think something like this is possible?"

"I don't see how, but obviously I should. So I'll say yes."

"Even agnostics can't deny the writings of Nostradamus and certain prophets whose words have come to life. Trust me for now, the ability to know the future, however misunderstood by science, is not _unknown_ by science."

"Fine. I'll take your word for it."

"Good. Because there's hardly a leap between knowing the future and changing the present. Do you remember a man named Sam? He was a prophet - a judge, actually, but like a prophet - thousands of years ago."

"Sam?"

"How was it possible for a man named Sam to kill thousands of people with the jawbone of an ass? Or level a massive stone building with one hard push? You think it was fable?"

Kruger blinked. There was something here that she could remember. Comic books with superheroes that she read when she was younger. Sam was a superhero.

"Supernatural," she said.

Chris grinned. "I won't give you all the specifics of Project Showdown yet - they would overwhelm you. All in good time. But let me tell you what you need to understand your power."

He sat back in his chair. "Twelve years ago a confrontation between good and evil of biblical proportions visited this valley. Many things happened that week. It was then that a student named Billy found among other things, some books in the dungeons beneath the monastary. Ancient books that demonstrated the power of the word and free will. They were called the _Books of Histories_, first discovered by Hunter, whose life is documented in the three volumes simply referred to now as _Black, Red_, and _White_."  
None of this rang a bell with Kruger. Chris saw her blank look and moved on without elaborating.

"Never mind. You don't need to know any of this to understand. But these books that Billy found held a power that few have been fortunate enough to witness firsthand. I mentioned Sam's strength. But there are accounts of hundreds of these sorts of things, manifestations of superhuman power that changed the course of history."

Chris drew a deep breath. "In the case of this books, certain things written in them would actually happen. Do you follow?"

Kruger put her elbows on the table. She didn't know what to think about any of this. None of it was harder to believe than a prophecy, she supposed, and she'd agreed to believe the possibility of at least that much.

"Books that create truth," Kruger said. "Things that happen because they're written."

"Correct. At any rate, an event occurred that week that was so inconsequential at the time that we hardly noticed it. Evidently you and two other children each made entries into the books and then promptly forgot about those entries. I don't blame you. There was no evidence at the time that your entries had any significance or would come true."

"What entries?"

"'Kruger was given great powers to destroy anyone who stood in the way of truth.' Those were your exact words."

"That's it?"

Chris smiled and cocked an eyebrow. "Pretty broad statement, isn't it?"

"What happened to the books?"

"Let's just say that as far as we know, they went missing forever. It wasn't until you earned your first Purple Heart in the army that I took any notice. You were a chaplain and braved impossible odds to save a colonel stranded at a post. The rest of your company had been killed. Yet you, a noncombatant, went back. You evidently faced a barrage of gunfire without being hit. I talked to the colonel myself. He described a scene that he himself had difficulty believing. But he was alive. You had to have done what he saw you do. Samuel began to watch you then."

"Samuel, who is just a boy."

"No, no, not just a boy. He was part of Project Showdown as well. He was the only survivor immediately affected. Since that week twelve years ago, my son hasn't aged a day."

Kruger wanted to say something to express her doubt, but she couldn't think of anything. She looked at Shizuru, who was studying the old man skeptically.

"You saw him. I can prove a hundred ways over that he's lived for twenty-five years. If you need any proof that what I've said about Project Showdown is true, Samuel is your proof."

"And you're saying that I gained certain capabilities as a result of writing in these books," Kruger said.

"Yes, you were given certain supernatural gifts. Not unlike Sam. Samuel watched you closely and recorded a dozen instances where you used them. He approached you about your gifts when he noticed they were growing stronger. Evidently you weren't certain of your gifts even then. But you were a person of incredible faith, a profound believer who was willing to give her life for the defense of truth. Truth, Kruger. Ever since Project Showdown, you've been consumed with the truth."

_And now I don't possess an ounce of truth. It's been stripped from me. I don't even know if what I'm being told is the truth._

"Then Samuel had his dream," Chris said. "He saw into the future."

He said it as though this new bit of information was the anchor that would awaken Kruger's understanding. It did nothing of the kind.

"He saw the assassination of a world leader, which we now know was the president. The killer came from the X Group. Samuel had never heard of the X Group, naturally. You can imagine his surprise to discover that there actually _was_ such a group that did indeed undertake assassinations. It took him months to get to the bottom of it, or as near to the bottom as one can get with the X Group. He hatched the plan then."

"Hatched what plan?"

"The plan to get you into the X Group. They are connected to certain parts of the Central Intelligence Agency that sometimes gave assistance to the X Group. Samuel saw to it that the CIA suggested your recruitment. With your record, you were the perfect candidate."

Kruger stared at the kind eyes that watched her. She had been kidnapped and destroyed _because_ of this man and his son, Samuel?

"Please, you have to know that neither of us had any understanding of how destructive their techniques were at the time," Chris said.

Kruger wanted to feel anger, but she felt nothing.

"We didn't know about the torture," Chris said. "Or the invasive identity manipulation."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Kruger demanded. "How could Samuel do this and call himself my friend?"

"No, never! When Samuel told you of his vision and the X Group, you insisted that you should do exactly as he suggested. You said it was the least you could do after what he did for you. You were a women of deep faith. In your mind, infiltrating the enemy's camp was the only right thing to do."

"I don't remember any of this! You make me sound like some kind of crazy superhero!"

"Superhero? Aren't we all? Isn't that what all men, women, and children are? Isn't that what Project Showdown was all about? We, the ostracized few, given power to aid the very society that fear us? You just happen to have an extra portion, thanks to the books. You're this world's Sam, Kruger."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"And I don't believe you," Shizuru said. "What kind of person would actually think he could infiltrate the X Group without being killed?"

"A boy who once faced the vilest evil and walked away. A girl who survived Project Showdown: Kruger. And a person who would give his life for Kruger at a moment's notice: my son, Samuel." The tremble in Chris' voice vibrated along Kruger's nerves. "And I don't mind adding," the old man continued, calmer now, "they were right. The president's alive today because of what Samuel and Kruger did."

"You don't know that," Kruger said. "Simm Rosfez ordered the hit on the president. Ishigami won't back off just because I failed. For all we know the president will be dead in an hour."

"You're sure it was Rosfez who ordered the hit?"

Kruger looked at Shizuru, who nodded. "Yes. There's no way to prove it, but that was my understanding."

"If the world knew, Rosfez might call off any second attempt. If he was implicated..."

"No. He would deny it," Shizuru said. "And he'd make the United States look foolish for suggesting it."

"It would be his word againts ours, surely-"

Your own CIA would probably also deny it," Shizuru interrupted. "They're in bed with Ishigami. You've put us in an impossible situation! Our lives, your life, Saeko's life, the president's life, and who knows how many other's - they're all in Ishigami's line of sight. Clearly you don't understand how ruthless he is."

"I've seen worse, believe me. Perhaps he should be dealt with directly."

"Kill Ishigami?" Shizuru said. "This isn't a simple matter. He's no longer in the compound. Any sign of trouble and Ishigami would move immediately. Even if I could find them, they would know I'd compromised them and take the necessary precautions."

"They've moved my pit?" Kruger asked, surprised.

"They've abandoned the camp, at least temporarily."

Kruger wanted to ask when she and Shizuru might go back, but she immediately felt foolish for even thinking such a thing. She was done with them. Wasn't she? Of course she was!

"How would Ishigami suspect that he was in danger?" Chris asked.

Shizuru shook her head. "He's tied in with all of them. Interpol, CIA, NSA, the Russians, the Chinese, the French - they all need him. They all want him. He has many, many guarantees. If he dies, every country that's ever used him will be exposed, and they know it."

"There has to be a way."

"If I supposedly once had power from these books," Kruger said, "isn't it possible that others also have a power from them?"

"Yes. Two others. But we've been watching them. The rest were confidentially integrated back into society for their own protection."

"How do you know it's only two? What if someone else used the books? Someone evil?"

"No." Chris motioned emphatically with his hand. "We'd have seen it by now."

For a few moments they each were lost in thought. Kruger tried to remember a conversation with a boy named Samuel about being recruited by the X Group, but she didn't have the slightest recollection of talking, much less agreeing. What kind of person would agree to such a thing?

A person of virtue. But she didn't feel like a person of virtue.

A person of great faith. But she didn't have any faith.

A person who was unique and powerful. But she didn't want to be either unique or powerful.

A person who was still expected to do great things. But Kruger was overwhelmed by a desire to be normal. Hadn't she paid enough of a price these last ten months? Hadn't she done what she and Samuel had agreed to do by saving the president?

She stood and crossed the room, suddenly angry. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been truly angry. It was the emotion she'd first learned to shut down in order to survive Youko. But now, learning who she was or had been, she embraced the sentiment - enough of it to raise her pulse a few beats.

"Why are you telling me this?" She knew the answer, but she asked anyway and then answered herself. "What do you expect me to do, protect the president? I don't even know how to protect myself anymore. The skills I had were dependent on my singular focus." She shoved a finger againts her head. "On my mind! Now I'm full of doubts. I probably couldn't hit a barrel at a hundred yards now."

"No one's suggesting that you need your skills to protect the president," Chris said.

"Then what?"

Chris interlaced his fingers and put both elbows on the table. "I don't know. I'm not the one with the power."

"I _have_ no power! How can I convince you of that? Should we test it? Strap me to a bed, electrocute me, see if I can withstand the heat?"

They both looked at her.

"Do you want to place me in a box full of hornets, see if I can survive their stings? Shove a needle through my shoulder, see if I can withstand the pain?"

Chris' face was white.

"Has it ever occurred to you that I've been able to do a few things beyond what's considered natural even after intense training and focus? Now that you've undermined my faith by introducing all of this nonsense that only a child could possibly accept, I'm a shadow of myself."

"Only by choice," Chris said.

"I don't want to be this person you're describing! I don't want to be Kruger if Kruger is anyone but Saeko's son. I'm Natsuki! Everything else is foreign to me. I've tried, believe me - I've racked my mind trying to be someone else, but I'm not. I'm Natsuki, and Natsuki loves two things: Shizuru and her pit."

Shizuru stared at her. It occured to Kruger that her anger could be justifiably directed at Shizuru. If she continued down this path, Shizuru would be faced with more pain than she could bear, and in front of Chris. She didn't want to do that to her.

Kruger let her anger dissipate. Her outburst wasn't satisfying anyway. She wasn't sure she even understood it. Why _wouldn't_ she want to be the person Chris described? Because she wanted to be normal. Just herself, as she knew herself to be.

Natsuki.

She could still control her emotions to some extent, which was good. Maybe she still had some of the other skills she'd come to this country with. Maybe she was still a good sniper. A good assassin. She hoped so. Their survival might depend on it.

She turned to her seat. "I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not the one with power either. I can't do anything more than nudge a bullet to follow a path ingrained in my head. And don't tell me I haven't tried hard enough. If there's one thing Youko taught me well, it's how to try. I tried in ways most can't or won't, and I have the scars to prove it."

Shizuru put her hand on her arm. Kruger closed her eyes and swallowed. She wanted to throw herself at Shizuru and beg her to hold her. To comfort her. But she could no more break down again than she could stand and run around the cabin naked.

They sat in silence, sifting through these agonies.

Shizuru finally broke the silence. "Can you tell us more about Project Showdown?"

Chris stared at her. It took awhile for him to respond. "Why don't we eat something? I brought some steaks. Then I'll tell you about Project Showdown. I trust you're not given to nightmares."

* * *

...review...any one... 


	25. Chapter 24

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

It was midnight. The orange light that flickered in the cabin's windows had winked out an hour ago. Reito had seated himself cross-legged on a boulder fifty feet from the shack two hours earlier and watched in silence, listening to soft murmur of voices inside. 

All three had come out once to use the outhouse behind the cabin, but none of them had seen him staring at them from the shadows beyond the ring of light cast by their lamps inside.

The canyon rested in perfect peace under a half-moon's pale gaze. A pebble clicked on his right, dislodged by a lizard or small rodent that scampered away. Then peace again.

He could hear the silence. Feel its stillness. Smell its crisp purity.

The town of Paradise was a disappointment. Nightlife was evidently something these mountain folk didn't regard with much interest. Obviously they'd given up their affinity for grace juice.

He'd considered making a bit of a ruckus in the town before going up the mountain but decided that now was not a good time to leave a trail. There was nothing the hapless mountain folk could offer him that he didn't already have anyway.

He had bigger plans. Kruger.

They were in a test of wills, a contest of choices, and thus far Reito had made the superior choices. In all likelihood, Kruger was only now even learning that she had a choice.

The fast-approaching end to this game seemed rushed after nearly a year of patience. A shame that he wouldn't need to use his trump card after all. Part of Reito didn't want to end it so quickly. Perhaps he should extend the game. The decision momentarily paralyzed him.

Being human wasn't always the easiest way to make a living. He let the angst fade.

Reito stretched out his left hand, shoulder-high, and opened his palm, eyes still fixed on the dark cabin. Something whistled softly through the night. A stone slightly smaller than his fist smacked into his open palm.

He had half a mind to take this rock back to the compound and bury it in Youko's throat. _Are we impressed with lowering the temperature and nudging bullets, Youko?_

He tossed the stone into the air. Instead of falling back with gravity, it reached its apex two feet above his hand and was summarily snatched away by the night behind him. He heard it strike the distant canyon wall to his rear, hardly more than a _tick_.

He hopped off the rock and landed on the sand with a soft _thump_. Careless, but with odds like this he hardly needed to creep up on them like a mouse. Still, he walked soundelessly toward the door, hands ready.

He withdrew one of the guns from his hip, a Colt Model 1911 .45 caliber. Jacketed hollow-point 230-grain bullets with enough kick to knock a man across the room. Single-action, recoil-driven semiautomatic with a magazine of 10 +1. Custom blue-steel barrel. Reito's pistol of choice.

He stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, cocked the gun by his ear, and tried the door. Unlocked.

Here it was, then.

Reito twisted the knob and pushed the door open, leveling the gun as he did so. His eyes were fully accustomed to the dark, so before the door had completed its full swing, he'd taken in the table, the kitchen, the loft above the kitchen, and the bedroom door on the back wall.

Still not a sound.

Moving fast, he slid to the loft ladder, hopped up onto the fifth rung, and scanned the sleeping area. Bed with rumpled blankets. No body.

No body.

He spun and dropped, catlike. The wood floor creaked. All three must be behind the bedroom door, sleeping soundlessly.

Moving more on instinct than with calculation, Reito flew across the room, shoved the door open, and trained his weapon on an empty bed.

Empty bed.

Empty room.

Empty cabin.

"Don't move."

The voice, which he immediately recognized as Kruger's, came from behind.

"Drop the guns. All of them."

He could have leveled the her then and there, without even turning. But he did have a couple of challenges if he made a move now.

His first challenge was that any one of Kruger's bullets would kill him as quickly as any other person. The less-skilled person would undoubtedly get off a shot before falling from Reito's attack, and at this range, she wouldn't miss Reito's head.

His second challenge was that he didn't know where the others were. They'd obviously been more alert than he guessed. Shizuru might not be Kruger, but with a gun at close range, she could kill just as easily.

Reito turned slowly, gun hand raised.

He'd truned three-quarters of the way around when Kruger shot him in his leg. "I said drop the gun. The next one goes through a bone."

Reito felt the pain spread through his thigh. Flesh wound, right thigh, hardly more than a crease. Still, he dropped the Colt.

"The other guns as well. And knives."

No sign of Shizuru or the old man. Reito searched the darkness for any clue of the woman. Nothing. If Shizuru hid nearby, she was silent.

"Now," Kruger said.

Reito complied. The other Colt from his hip. The two 9mm's at his back. Two knives from his calves. He's misjudged Kruger, but if she knew the extent of Reito's skills, she'd have shot him while she had the chance. Instead, Kruger thought she had the upper hand and intended to question him. Or use him.

Reito let a shallow grin cross his mouth. Kruger still didn't know the truth.

He spread his empty hands. "Satisfied?"

The girl who loved the dark stared at him in the pale moonlight.

"Hello, Reito. You walk too loudly. I'm surprised you found us as quickly as you did."

"It won't be your last surprise," Reito said. "Why don't you kill me?"

"I'm going to. How did you know about this place?"

"Ishigami knows many things."

"He's ordered you to kill the president?"

"We never fail, you know that."

"Yet you failed now. It seems that Ishigami forgot to tell you about the trap door in the bedroom. Only a fool would build a cabin at the end of this particular box canyon without an escape route. Chris Abraham is no fool."

So Shizuru and the old man had escaped through some sort of hatch in the bedroom floor. They were probably on top of the cliffs already. This meant that there was no gun trained on him, other than Kruger's.

"You should have gone with them," he said.

"After you tell me what I need to know."

Reito grew impatient. One of the knives on the floor began to float. It lifted three inches from the ground and slid horizontally above the wood floor.

Kruger glanced down, eyes registering surprise.

The knife sprang shoulder-high and sliced toward Kruger in silence. Reito was prepared to dodge a shot from Kruger's gun, but it never came. Kruger was immobilized by indecision. Or she'd already concluded that shooting would guarantee her death, even if she did hit Reito.

"I know other tricks as well. I suggest you drop the gun."

Kruger studied the blade at her neck, then lifted her eyes. They exchanged a long stare.

Reito winked.

Kruger slowly lowered her gun. "You're affecting the zero-point field?"

"Drop the gun."

Kruger's pistol fell from her fingers and clattered on the floor.

"Actually, it's nothing so scientific as the zero-point field or any of Youko's theories. I'm surprised that you, of all people, don't know that."

"Who are you?"

"I'm Reito. I am the personification of man's worst fears. I am-"

A creak behind Reito stopped him cold. He dropped to one knee and felt the sting on his cheek a thousandth of a second after he heard the crash of gunfire from the room behind him.

Shizuru had returned for her lover. Her bullet smashed through the window as it exited the cabin.

He palmed a 9mm from the floor where he'd dropped it and was twisted halfway around when her second shot split the night. He rolled to one side of the door and brought his gun up for a clean shot.

From his peripheral vision he saw a blur.

Kruger was coming for him.

Reito's momentary lapse in concentration had let the knife fall from Kruger's neck. Now he was forced to consider both Kruger and Shizuru. But this wasn't a problem for Reito. As long as he had direct sensory input from each of them, he could...

The window behind Kruger crashed.

In that split second, Reito knew what had happened . Kruger wasn't coming for him. She had thrown herself backward through the window.

Reito was already in the process of shooting a bullet into Shizuru's head when this realization hit him. And with the realization came another: Kruger had just gained the upper hand. Evidently she knew enough about how these powers worked to know that Reito needed a line of sight or sound to affect any object. She was removing herself from that line of sight.

So. Reito would simply kill Shizuru now and go after Kruger.

Unless goin after Kruger proved more difficult than he'd estimated, in which case having Shizuru alive might prove useful.

All of this crossed his mind before Kruger crashed to the ground outside the window. Shizuru was screaming as her third bullet whipped throughh the bedroom doorway.

Reito reached around the door frame and shot the pistol from her hand.

She cried out and snatched her hand close to her chest.

"Stay!" he snapped.

"You want _me_, not her!"

Reito jumped to his feet and bounded for the door. He could hear stones tumbling outside as Kruger climbed the rock slide behind the cabin, but the sounds were scattered. The thought of Kruger escaping him now mucked up his instincts.

Shizuru reached for the gun behind him. Furious, he jabbed his finger back at her. "Stay!"

The gun by her hand flew through the air as if it were on a string. He accepted it with his open fist, stepped into the night air, and fired wildly at the mound of boulders behind the cabin.

He fired seven shots in rapid succession. But he knew as he pulled the trigger that he couldn't direct the bullets with so much confusion at hand. His bullets smacked into rocks unguided.

Reito cried out in rage. The girl was escaping. He could kill Shizuru and go after her, but Kruger undoubtedly had another gun strapped somewhere to her body. Kruger didn't have Reito's power, but her aim was astonishingly accurate. And she loved the dark even more than Reito. Kruger could sit in silence at the top of the cliff and pick him off at her leisure.

Reito threw one of his guns on the ground and walked back into the cabin, calming himself. Kruger knew Reito wouldn't kill Shizuru now. A hostage was too valuable given the circumstances. And Kruger made the judgment quickly. Much more quickly than Reito expected.

He stared at Shizuru, who was evidently still stunned by the flying-gun trick.

"Get up," he said.

"What are you going to do?"

"We're leaving for a place better suited to our objective. If Kruger doesn't follow, I'm going to kill you."

"She'll never do that."

"She'll die for you. Or do you think she was just pulling your leg?"

"She'll know you're just using me."

"It doesn't matter. She's foolish enough to love you; she'll be foolish enough to die for you."

The sound of a helicopter winding up on the cliff cut through the night. He cursed himself for not taking the time to scout it out and disable it earlier.

Reito eyed Shizuru, who had gathered herself and was scowling. He allowed himself a smile. The woman he'd allowed to toy with him for so many months was beautiful; he could never deny that much. And wearing her anger, she was downright fascinating. Little did she know how much she cared for him.

But Reito knew. Deep down where the black and the white traded blows, Shizuru was desperate for him.

He lifted his pistol toward her, thumbed the release, and let the spent clip clatter to the floor. "Round one, Kruger."

Reito slammed a fresh clip into the gun, chambered a round, and let go of the handle. The pistol hung in the air unmoving, aimed at Shizuru. He stepped away from the obedient weapon.

"Stay," he said. "If she tries to run, shoot her in the leg."

Reito looked at Shizuru, who had traded her scowl for a look of amazement. Some fear. Respect and admiration. She was smitten by him. It was a pity he hated her; they would have made a good pair.

So why was he making such a display about showing her his power? Was he trying to impress her? They both knew there was no need for him to release the gun. It would shoot just as well in his fist.

He was toying with her, rubbing her hopelessness in her face.

Or maybe he was trying to win her respect because he didn't hate her as much as he thought he did.

Reito grunted, stepped forward, and snatched the weapon out of the air, his bad mood at having lost Kruger now fouler because of this minor indiscretion.

He pointed the gun at the door. "Go."

"Where?"

"After Kruger."

"Where is Kruger going?"

Reito hesitated, deciding wether to demonstrate his flawless logic in determining Kruger's next steps, which he had indeed calculated in the last sixty seconds while unwisely indulging in this gun-floating trick. He owed her no explanation. But he gave her a short one anyway, perhaps to impress her once again. He chastised himself even as he spoke.

"She's going to prove her love for you."

-/-/-/-

Kruger ran down the mountain, propelled by her need to save. To liberate. To kill.

With each plunging step through the underbrush, her decision to put so much distance between her and the woman she loved haunted her. She had to force her legs forward, down, over logs, through the branches grabbing at her legs.

But her instinct told her that her decision was a good one. Perhaps the only way to save Shizuru. If Reito guessed her course and prevented her from succeeding, on the other hand, this flight away from Shizuru could prove disastrous.

The helicopter had wound up and left with Chris. He'd protested Kruger's insistence that he leave immediately, but a short discussion had persuaded him. If Ishigami had sent Reito after them, it would be for Kruger and Shizuru, not Chris. The last things they could risk was making the helicopter a target, which it would become if Kruger and Shizuru were in it. Shooting a helicopter out of the air would be an easy task for Reito.

More than this, Kruger wasn't interested in fleeing. She and Shizuru knew they would have to deal with this threat directly.

She'd come instantly and fully awake at the sound of a distant rock hitting the cliff. Not rolling down with a series of clicks as others had done through the night, but striking a far rock wall with some force.

Unnatural. Then she'd heard the soft thump of two feet landing on sand and knew that Reito was outside.

Now, Kruger broke from the brush onto the wide ledge that overlooked the sleeping, moonlit town below.

She'd been here. She'd seen something significant from this very ledge. The events that Chris had described hours earlier flooded her mind. She'd seen part of them from this vantage point. The only thing that was more difficult to believe than this story of Chris' was that Kruger had some power hidden in her bones today because of it.

But the details of her past weren't germane to her mission today. They would tell her who she'd once been, not who she was now. They wouldn't save Shizuru or her. They would not kill Reito.

Reito, who evidently wasn't the same man Kruger had always known him to be.

Kruger turned onto the path on her right and continued her descent at a fast run. A shiver passed down her spine. She'd seen Reito's knife lift from the floor as if manipulated by a magnetic field. Seen it floating toward her, picking up speed, flashing through the night. Her instinct told her to block the weapon before it reached her neck. Her mind told her not to. It understood something that wasn't apparent to her instincts.

It understood that if Reito could do this, he could easily kill Kruger at any time. Could kill Kruger at his leisure. If Kruger tried to stop the knife, she would only injure herself. Perhaps lose her fingers or a hand.

Her mind buzzed with the implication of Reito's power. Either Reito had perfected control of the zero-point field, or he possessed a power far beyond any Youko knew about. Or Chris, for that matter, because Chris had said that only two other's possessed such power, and both were being watched.

Kruger had affected the flight of the bullet with supreme focus, but Reito had done far more. Any direct conflict with the man would end disastrously.

She ran with a growing fear. What she was about to attempt was nothing short of impossible. Yet she saw no other way.

Her fear gave way to anger as she approached Paradise. The town was in deep sleep when she ran past the Paradise Community Center, toward the blue truck. A dog barked at her from a front yard. She sprinted past, eager to get out of this hole from her past.

The keys were still in the wheel well where they'd left them. The money behind the seats. Blowing a breath of relief, she slid behind the wheel, fired the truck, peeled through a U-turn, and roared out of the valley.

Miles flew by in a confusing haze. The tunnel in her mind obediently formed, leading to the familiar light. Success depended on reaching the target before it was removed from her scope of operation. I she was too late, the mission would present her with significant new challenges that would set her back days.

She had money. She had a set of papers that identified her as Shane Matheson. And she had the skills of an assassin - the fact that she could so easily form her tunnel now under duress assured her of this much.

Kruger drove north, through Delta, toward Grand Junction, slipping deeper and deeper into her tunnel, energized by a growing anger that suprisingly didn't compromise her focus. In fact, this new fury boiling in her seemed to make the light brighter.

She reached the airport north of Grand Juction as the sun edged above the mesas. The guns she left in the truck; the rest she took.

The only seat available on the 6:49 flight to Denver was a first class seat identical in every way to the rest of the seats on the nineteenseat United Express turboprop. The first-class seat on the Boeing 757 to New York was more comfortable, but comfort wasn't a thing she could easily judge. In her mind, the pit was still her safest and by extension her most comfortable place.

She didn't belong in the pit. Not now.

Now she belonged behind a gun, preparing to send a bullet into a target's brain to save the one woman besides her mother whom she loved.

She would kill anyone to save her. Anyone or everyone.

The decision satisfied a deep yearning in her psyche to justify the hours of torment during which Kruger had become Natsuki. The training would be redeemed - it would now help her save the woman she loved.

She was really Natsuki, she decided. She would be Natsuki and she would do what Natsuki would do.

She would force Reito's hand by killing the man she'd crossed the oceans to kill.

* * *

**AN:**

hooray! natsuki is back!

i bet you were all tired of kruger, kruger, kruger. no worries it will be natsuki from here on out...unless i change my mind.

I'm sure that most of you were expecting a full out battle between reito and natsuki, there will be...but not today. So far this is all i can give you. i hope its satisfying and it will keep me from being stoned to death by those of you who want...well...more than what its written.

but heres something to look forward to. on the next couple of chapters it will be a cat and mouse chase between reito and natsuki, both trying to save someone thats important to their mission and/or life. who will emerge victorious...i won't tell, you'll have to read and wait long periods of time for my updates MUAHAHAHA!!!

now to the reviews:

**anon: **yea, know that i look it at it is pretty funny.

**littleleaf89: **that reito and saeko scene will be somewhat explained in later chapters.

Also. what is this i hear about saeko dying or being killed? how can death be infered from that little paragraph!? its just impossible!

**Chuckabutt aka Kara Papas: **indeed

**Krampus: **i hope this chapter serve to quench some of your need for reito smacking

**Luz Mclily: **wow...thanks

**Hoppy-chan: **hoppy-chan, relax and enjoy the story everything will be explained in due time. (except for the age part, theres no hope in that) and if you still have some questions after the story is done, you can always pm me and ask 'what the hell?' and i'll be happy to answer.

ok thats all, thanks also to Sakura cc and Blitz17 for reviewing.


	26. Chapter 25

I must apologize for the lateness of this chapter...

I'm sorry

and now to the story

Disclaimer: I own nothing, you own nothing, we don't own anything.

* * *

Natsuki and Shizuru had selected the Best Western in Chinatown as one of their two dummy rooms. The authorities may have traced her to the other hotel were she met Samuel, but there was little chance that anyone had found the room they rented for a week at the Best Western. 

If they had, Natsuki doubted they'd found the small stash of weapons in the toilet tank. She was right.

Natsuki pulled the bag, ripped open the plastic, and spilled two 9mm handguns, two extra clips, two sheated knives, and one cell phone onto the bed. She shoved both guns into her belt behind her, dropped the clips into the pocket of her jacket, and strapped one knife to each of her ankles.

Grabbing the cell phone, she strode from the room, hurried down the stairs, and caught a yellow cab at the curb.

"Bellevue Hospital," she said.

"Bellevue, First Street," the cabby repeated, punching his meter, which immediately began its count from $4.20.

"Please."

The car pulled into traffic. The late-afternoon sun was setting behind them as they angled northeast on Houston. Natsuki had never put much thought into whether a target deserved to be killed, at least not in her time of training with the X Group. But now she did, and she'd come to the conclusion en route to New York that this target deserved to die, no matter what the world thought of him.

This man deserved to die to save Shizuru.

This man deserved to die because Kruger had sworn to kill him.

This man deserved to die because Natsuki had been trained to kill him.

-/-/-/-

Shizuru was tempted to cry out to one of the security guards as they exited the airport, but she knew the impulse was a bad one. Not only were they all on the wrong side of justice, but they were playing a game that no security guard or policeman would understand.

Reito had driven her north to Grand Junction, where he'd found the blue truck parked at the airport. He grunted in satisfaction and then booked them on the 7:50 flight through Denver to New York.

Shizuru had asked him questions on the drive from Paradise, but Reito refused to respond. She wasn't sure if he was sulking or simply playing his cards close. Afterward, they didn't exchange a single word all the way to New York. He had her in a virtual prison. One wrong move and he would kill her with as little effort as it took him to cough.

Who was the man? Certainly not the same assassin she'd ordered around at the compound. But he _was_ the same man, which could only mean that he had been playing her the whole time. Did Youko or Ishigami know that he had these incredible powers?

No, she didn't think so. Youko wouldn't have shown so much interest in Natsuki's small feats if she knew that next door there was a man who could float a gun around the room.

If she hadn't seen Reito float the gun with her own eyes, she would still think the old man had spun a piece of pure fiction with his tale of magical books. She'd often thought of the Bible as precisely such a fictional book of fables.

But now she'd seen the impossible, and she was quite sure there was such a thing as supernatural power after all. On any other day, the revelation would have thrilled her to the bone.

Instead, it left her flat. Of course this power existed. She'd known it all along, somewhere beyond her immediate consciousness.

None of it mattered anymore. The girl she'd fallen in love with was going to die. And if Natsuki was going to die, she was also going to die.

Reito hailed a cab and held the door for her without meeting her eyes. She could swear he was sulking.

"UN Headquarters," he told the driver.

The cab pulled out, braked hard to avoid colliding with a sedan, then surged into the flow of cars.

"Why are we going to the United Nations?" she asked.

Reito spoke to her for the first time since leaving Colorado.

"To kill Kruger."

-/-/-/-

Everything in Natsuki's mind was black except for the light at the end of her tunnel. The light of her plan, the light of Shizuru's freedom.

"Could you pull over here?" Natsuki asked, motioning to a side street.

"Not Bellevue?" The man's eyes searched the rearview mirror.

"Pull over here."

The cab pulled over.

"Is this your cab?"

"Yes. I lease name and sign from company."

"I need to borrow it. Two hours, ten thousand dollars. Does that sound fair?"

The man looked back and waved a hand. "No, it is illegal. I cannot-"

"Fifteen thousand, then." This time Natsuki pushed three banded stacks of hundred-dollar bills through the hole in the plexiglas shield that separated them. "You can buy a new car if I damage this one."

The driver gawked at her, either thrilled by such an extravagant offer or terrified by it.

"No questions. If you'd rather, I'll make the same offer to the next cab. I don't have much time."

"How will I get car-"

"Parked in front of Bellevue Hospital in two hours. Yes or no?"

The man hesitated only a second before taking the money and flipping through it. He cast a long, furtive glance back, then tapped his watch. "Seven o' clock, Bellevue Hospital?"

"Yes."

The man climbed out and looked around nervously as Natsuki rounded the cab and slid behind the wheel.

She drove the car north, past Bellevue, past Thirty-fourth, past Forty-second, and parked near the UN Headquarters on the corner of First and Forty-sixth.

Most meetings on the original summit schedule had been disrupted by her attempt on the president's life, but according to the CNN report that Natsuki had seen in the Denver airport, the meeting now under way in the UN Building wasn't one of them.

Under any other circumstances, she would have set up with a rifle and taken a shot from a safe distance. But with Reito undoubtedly in pursuit, she didn't have time for such luxury.

Natsuki waited in the cab patiently, staring with fixed eyes at the doors through which the target would exit, acutely aware of details that her training had taught her to absorb.

The man fifty yards up the street who ambled slowly with a bottle in one hand and a stick in the other, poking through each garbage receptacle he passed.

The child across the street who'd stopped with his mother to gaze at the UN entrance.

A bird on the street lamp twenty meters north, clocking its eyes at her.

The security guards stationed by the front door, who had cast frequent glances her way before crossing the street and accepting her explanation that she was waiting for an aide, whom she named from a memorized list.

Each limousine and cab that approached and passed, which she examined like a machine searching for defective eggs at a poultry factory.

Most of this occurred outside of Natsuki's direct focus. Only one objective mattered to her now, and that objective received most of her attention.

Natsuki sat with both hands on the steering wheel, drilling the doors with an unbroken stare, sweating with cold fury now. She didn't want to sweat, but she wanted to feel, so she let her body react normally to the anger that filled the black walls of her tunnel.

Only when a tremble overtook her fingers did Natsuki rein in her rage. Withing seconds her fingers stilled, and withing five minutes the sweat on her skin had dried.

Then the doors opened and a dozen dark-suited guards and dignitaries spilled from the UN Headquarters.

It was time.

* * *

**AN:**

again i'm sorry for the lateness, but you see i have been busy mapling, and if you guys think its not a good enough excuse then i should also mention that i have been busy watching new anime also. and if u still think thats still not a good enough excuse then i should probably tell you the truth and say that i was too freaking lazy...so...i'm sorry.

also sorry for the short chapter, the next chapter should be longer...cuz i'll make it longer!

anyways, goodnight dudes and chicks, i will be dreaming of reviews.

...(in case u didn't get the hint...i want you to review...please)


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